c\3.3 l,sn Bk.^ 


Trinity  College  Historical 
Society  Collection 


Trinity  College  Library 
[Hirham,  N.  C. 


\j 


BULLETIN  OF  THE 
Pnifrrrsitg  of  jioutl]  Carolina 


NOTES  ON 


Labor  Organizations  in  South 
Carolina,  1 742- 1 86 1 


YATES  SNOWDEN 


ISSUED  QUARTERLY 
BY  THE  UNIVERSITY 


No.  38 
Part  IV 
July,  1914 


COLUMBIA,  S.  C. 

Second-Class  Mail  Matter 


/nV2  ^ 


NOTES  ON 


Labor  Organizations  in  South 
Carolina,  1 7 42- 1 86 1 


BY 

YATES  SNOWDEN 


ay 


bo 

X 

rl 

\ 

p* 


THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
COLUMBIA.  S.  C. 
1914 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2016 


https://archive.org/details/notesonlabororga01snow 


PREFATORY  NOTE. 


This  tentative  sketch  of  ‘ ‘Labor  Organizations  in  South 
Carolina”— perhaps,  “Early  Trade  Associations,”  or 
“Labor  Combinations,”  would  be  a more  correct  title— is 
largely  based  upon  a paper  read  before  the  Kosmos  Club 
of  Columbia,  in  1913,  and  a series  of  articles  which 
appeared  in  The  Charleston  Review,  August  23d  to  Novem- 
ber 29th,  1913.  If  this  sketch  shall  whet  the  curiosity  of 
some  careful  investigator  for  an  exhaustive  study  of  the 
files  of  the  Gazettes  in  the  Charleston  Library  Society,  and 
an  examination  of  State  papers  and  documents  in  the  office 
of  the  South  Carolina  Historical  Commission,  Columbia, 
the  writer  will  consider  himself  amply  repaid  for  this 
introductory  and  superficial  study. 

Yates  Snowden. 

University  of  South  Carolina,  August,  1914. 


NOTES  ON  LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS  IN  SOUTH 
CAROLINA,  1742-1861. 


It  is  impossible,  from  the  crude  and  meagre  data  so  far 
collected— and  it  may  be  questioned  whether  satisfactory 
information  can  ever  be  gathered— to  ascertain  the  date 
of  the  first  organization  of  laboring  men,  artisans  and 
mechanics,  in  this  State,  with  the  intent  to  fix  wages. 

Apart  from  the  fact  that  little  appeared  in  the  public 
prints  anywhere  about  organizations  of  workingmen,  and 
that  their  constitutions,  price  lists,  minute  books  and  other 
papers  have  been  lost,  it  should  be  remembered  that  the 
investigator  of  economic  conditions  in  this  State,  more 
than  in  any  one  of  the  Old  Thirteen,  finds  the  larger 
majority  of  laborers  negro  slaves.  Recent  tentative 
studies  prove  that  a larger  number  of  these  negroes  and 
mulattoes— some  of  whom  gained  their  freedom— were 
skilled  mechanics  than  has  generally  been  supposed. 


The  First  Grievance. 


As  early  as  1742  we  find  the  grand  jury  of  thgjEmwjflge 
tf  South  Carolina  declaring : “We  present  as  a grievance 

the  want  of  a law  to  prevent  the  hiring  out  of  negro 
tradesmen,  to  the  great  discouragement  of  the  white 
workmen  coming  into  this  Province.”  The  presentment 
of  the  grand  jury  was  apparently  barren  of  results,  as 
shown  by  the  petition  of  fifteen  white  shipwrights, 
in  January,  1744,  for  which  I am  indebted  to  that 
enthusiastic  scholar,  Mr.  Gilbert  P.  Voigt. 

This  significant  proceeding  casts  so  bright  a light  on 
economic  conditions  in  Charles  Town  nearly  170  years  ago 
that  it  is  here  given  almost  in  full. 

From  Journal  of  Council,  January  18,  1744,  Vol.  XI,  p.  53: 
“Read  the  Petition  of  Andrew  Ruck,  et  al. 

‘ ‘That  there  being  such  a Great  number  of  Negroe  men 
chiefly  employed  in  mending  repairing  and  caulking  of 


6 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


Ships,  Vessels,  and  boats,  and  working  at  the  Shipwrights 
Trade  and  business  in  this  Town,  Harbour  and  other 
Places  near  the  same,  that  the  Petitioners  who  are  white 
Persons  and  have  served  their  times  to  the  Trade  of  a 
Shipwright  can  meet  with  little  or  no  Work  to  do,  and 
them  and  their  Familys  are  reduced  to  poverty  and  must 
be  obliged  to  leave  the  Province,  or  run  the  risque  of 
starving,  if  they  are  not  relieved  or  meet  with  any 
encouragement  to  settle  or  get  any  Work. 

“Wherefore  the  Petitioners  most  humbly  prayed  that 
his  Excellency  would  be  pleased  to  take  their  case  into 
Consideration  and  Grant  relief  to  them  as  his  Excellency 
in  his  Great  Wisdom  shall  think  meet  and  the  Peti’rs  as 
ever  in  duty  bound  would  ever  pray. 

(Sgd.)  Andrew  Ruck,  John  Smith,  William  Smith, 
Gidon  Norton,  etc.”  (About  14  other  subscribers,  ship 
carpenters. ) 

There  was  nothing  approximating  a labor  union  then  in 
Charles  Town,  so  the  Council,  after  due  consideration, 
ordered  “That  as  several  of  the  most  Emenent  Ship- 
wrights in  Town  had  not  signed  the  said  Petition,  That 
the  other  Shipwrights  who  had  not  signed  it,  be  sum- 
moned to  attend  the  Council  before  anything  be  concluded 
therein.”  Several  days  later  these  “emenent  ship- 
wrights,” John  Yarworth,  John  Daniell  and  others 
applied  for  a copy  of  the  petition  of  Ruck  and  the  other 
complainants,  which  was  duly  furnished  by  the  clerk 
of  council. 

Yarworth,  et  al,  make  a lengthy  statement  in  reply, 
claiming  that  they  had  employed  their  own  slaves,  and 
that  they  had  in  no  wise  thereby  “glutted  the  labor 
market,  but  that  the  Complainants  are  wanting  in  noth- 
ing to  maintain  themselves  and  their  familys  with  as 
much  Credit  as  we  have  done,  but  Industry,  and  a more 
frugal  Way  of  Life.” 

They  cite  several  instances  to  prove  that  the  complain- 
ants had  refused  to  work  except  for  “exorbitant  wages.” 
For  instance : ‘ ‘On  the  1st  day  of  December,  1739,  Mr. 
Benjamin  Godin  had  immediate  occasion  to  bring  his  Crop 
to  Market,  and  for  that  purpose  wanted  his  boat  new  bot- 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


7 


tomed.  These  Ship  Carpenters  finding  his  urgent  neces- 
sity refused  to  work  at  less  than  50  Shill’s  per  diem,  w’ch 
he  was  obliged  to  give  them.  From  all  which  it  is  evident 
that  these  men  had  no  ground  of  Complaint  for  want  of 
work.  That  many  times  they  have  Refused  to  work  at 
all,  or  if  obliged  to  it  by  necessity  only  on  extravagant 
Wages.”  * * * “And  we  are  fully  Convinced  that 
there  is  business  in  this  place  sufficient  for  three  times  the 
Ship  Carpenters,  and  that  the  Complaints  that  have  been 
made  to  your  Excellency  and  to  your  Honors  as  aforesaid 
is  with  no  other  view  than  to  engross  the  whole  trade  into 
their  own  hands,  and  thereby  to  have  it  in  their  power 
to  make  their  own  prices,  all  which  is  most  humbly 
submitted,  etc. 

“John  Daniell,  John  Yarworth,  John  Scott,  David 
Brown,  George  Hesket.” 

A little  over  three  years  later,  in  that  great  storehouse 
of  information  regarding  the  German  settlers  in  South 
Carolina,  the  Urlsperger  Nachrichten  (Vol.  Ill,  page  216, 
entry  of  July  25,  1747),  we  find  the  following  note  (trans- 
lated), showing  that  Ruck  and  the  ship  carpenters  were 
not  the  only  settlers  that  found  slave  labor  a menace: 

“Held  has  removed  to  Carolina  with  his  wife,  with  the 
hope  of  supporting  himself  better  there  with  his  weaver’s 
trade  than  here  with  farming  and  cattle  raising.  His 
service  in  Carolina  will  last  probably  no  longer  than  until 
the  two  negro  slaves  shall  have  learned  the  weaver’s  trade 
from  him,  and  can  weave  themselves.  So  it  goes  through 
all  Carolina;  the  negroes  are  made  to  learn  all  the  trades, 
and  are  used  for  all  kinds  of  businesses.  For  this  reason 
white  people  have  difficulty  in  earning  their  bread  there: 
unless  they  become  slave-overseers,  or  provide  themselves 
with  slaves.” 

The  complaint  as  to  possible  competition  from  negro 
weavers  was  not  well  founded,  for  though  in  after  times 
negroes  wove  rough  fabrics  for  use  on  the  plantations  of 
their  masters,  such  products  were  never  put  on  the  mar- 
ket, and  as  early  as  1749,  Governor  James  Glen,  in  his 
“Answers”  to  the  “Lords  Commissioners  for  Trade  and 
Plantations”  reports  that  some  “Irish  Linnen  is  being 


8 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


made  by  the  ‘Irish  township  of  Williamsburgh’.  ” As  a 
matter  of  fact,  in  spite  of  the  threat  of  George  McDuffie, 
in  Congress,  eighty  years  later,  the  negro  has  never  been 
a successful  textile  worker  in  South  Carolina.  The  costly 
experiment  was  made  on  a large  scale  by  a cotton  mill  in 
Charleston  twelve  or  thirteen  years  ago,  and  as  a result  the 
factory  soon  closed  and  its  looms  and  machinery  were  sold 
to  a corporation  in  northern  Georgia. 

Later  Competition  With  Negro  Slaves. 

Prof.  Ulrich  B.  Phillips,  who  investigated  conditions  in 
Charleston  and  tidewater  South  Carolina  at  a later  period 
(see  “Slave  Labor  Problem  in  the  Charleston  District”), 
draws  some  conclusions  which  apply  more  or  less  to  the 
first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

He  says:  “There  appeared  two  interests  favoring  the 
restriction  of  negro  opportunity.  The  white  laboring  man 
wanted  to  keep  the  slaves  out  of  the  skilled  trades  as  far 
as  possible,  and  to  that  end  opposed  any  broadening  of 
negroes’  range  of  personal  freedom  as  increasing  the  dan- 
ger of  demoralization  and  revolt.  The  white  artisans,  it 
seems,  had  not  enough  political  strength  to  get  their  will 
enacted  into  law,  and  the  statutes  prohibiting  the  hiring 
of  their  time  by  slaves  were  not  sufficiently  supported  by 
public  opinion  to  secure  their  enforcement.  Like  most 
other  provisions  of  the  slave  code,  this  rule  was  generally 
disregarded  when  the  interest  or  inclination  of  master 
and  slave  agreed  in  favor  of  its  violation.  In  many  cases 
the  law,  if  enforced,  would  have  seriously  hampered 
industry  and  commerce.  In  the  city,  for  example,  steve- 
dores, boat  hands,  messengers,  carpenters  and  day  laborers 
in  general,  were  needed  often  for  immediate  service,  and 
the  employer  could  not  submit  to  the  delay  and  formality 
of  seeking  out  and  making  contracts  with  the  owners  of 
the  slaves  whose  labor  he  desired.  For  the  sake  of  a 
flexible  labor  supply,  some  device  like  that  of  slaves  hiring 
their  own  time  was  essential,  and  that  being  the  case,  the 
laws  prohibiting  this  arrangement  could  not,  of  course, 
secure  general  observance.  In  quiet  times,  indeed,  the 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


9 


citizens  fell  generally  into  easy-going  practices,  each 
following  his  own  interest  in  managing  his  slaves  (or 
letting  them  manage  him),  and  thinking  little  of  the 
provisions  for  public  control.” 

After  the  Revolution,  one  of  the  leaders  in  the  Con- 
stitutional Convention  held  in  Charleston  in  1788,  said 
that  “cheap  negro  labor  was  steadily  undermining  the 
white  artisan  class  in  South  Carolina.”  That  the  presence 
of  these  skilled  colored  workmen  was  resented  by  white 
mechanics,  and  worked  to  their  disadvantage,  is  proven 
by  a cursory  examination  of  the  Journals  of  the  Legisla- 
ture. Take,  for  example,  this  extract  from  the  Journals 
of  the  Senate  of  South  Carolina  for  1794  (p.  211). 

May  7.  “Read  the  Memorial  and  Remonstrance  of  the 
Mechanics  of  the  City  of  Charleston,  presented  by  Col. 
Thomson,  Praying 

“That  this  Honourable  House  would  be  pleased  to  pass 
a Law  for  regulating  the  exercise  of  Mechanic  trades  by 
slaves  in  the  City  of  Charleston.” 

It  would  be  interesting  to  read  the  debates  on  this 
vexed  problem.  It  is  evident,  however,  from  this  entry 
in  the  Journal  of  the  Senate  for  1794,  that  no  relief  was 
granted,  for  we  read  on 

December  12.  “Read  a second  time,  the  Bill  for  the 
Regulation  of  Slaves,  and  more  especially  mechanic  slaves, 
in  the  exercise  of  their  respective  trades  in  the  City  of 
Charleston  and  in  Georgetown.” 

The  vote  on  this  bill  was  11  yeas  to  16  nays— and  it 
was  lost. 

A Post-Revolutionary  Labor  Controversy. 

The  following  notes  from  one  of  the  Charleston  news- 
papers in  the  Fall  of  1783,  for  which  I am  largely  indebted 
to  Prof.  Charles  A.  Hull,  of  Cornell  University,  cast  an 
interesting  side-light  on  wages  and  labor  combinations  in 
post- Re  volutionary  Charleston,  and  may  serve  as  a sort  of 
index  to  the  student  making  an  exhaustive  study.  In 
Mills’s  Statistics  of  South  Carolina  (pp.  427-8),  published 
in  1826,  is  a schedule  of  the  price  of  labor  for  ship  carpen- 
ters, blacksmiths,  block  and  pump  makers,  ship  joiners, 


10 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


riggers,  painters,  turners,  and  coopers — white  and  black — 
by  comparison  with  which  it  would  appear  that  the 
mechanics  of  1783  received  very  fair  wages. 

The  charge  against  carpenters  of  a combination  to  raise 
the  price  of  labor,  in  October,  1783,  is  significant,  as  well 
as  the  replies  of  “House  Carpenter”  and  “A  Mechanic”, 
branding  the  statement  as  “infamous,”  “false,”  and  a 
“palpable  lie!” 

In  the  South  Carolina  Gazette  (Miller’s),  October  18, 
1783,  “Another  Patriot”  comments  upon  the  need  of 
rebuilding  Charleston,  after  the  devastation  of  the  Revo- 
lution. But,  the  price  of  labor  amounts  to  a prohibition. 
Though  the  cost  of  living  is  less  than  in  England,  carpen- 
ters ask  four  times  as  much  per  day.  He  suggests  invit- 
ing down  carpenters,  brick-makers  and  brick-layers  from 
the  North,  who,  while  their  homes  are  wrapped  in  ice  and 
snow,  could  make  a little  fortune;  also  giving  bounties  to 
encourage  the  immigration  of  artisans.  Bricks  are  now 
£2,  3s  6d  at  Charleston;  stone,  slates  and  tiles  not  to  be 
procured.  Suggests  that  they  might  be  brought  as  ballast. 
Carpenters  are  paid  $2  per  day  (9s  4d  sterling) ; ship  car- 
penters 12s  for  whites  and  8s  for  blacks,  and  both  sorts 
found  in  food  and  drink. 

South  Carolina  Gazette  (Miller’s),  October  21,  “Another 
Patriot”  having  received  a note  that  several  of  the  house 
carpenters  demand  and  receive  $3  per  day,  and  that  “ they 
have  entered  into  an  agreement  not  to  work  under  such  a 
price ” (italics  mine),  comments  that  by  the  same  prin- 
ciple that  now  binds  our  workmen,  and  which  has  grown 
into  an  unsupportable  combination,  they  fancy  they  may 
advance  their  prices  to  any  given  sum.  This  delusion,  he 
trusts,  will  not  last  long.  The  Corporation,  no  doubt, 
will  exert  the  powers  vested  in  it  for  the  remedy  of  so 
oppressive  an  evil. 

Hotly  Denies  any  Combination  of  Carpenters. 

South  Carolina  Gazette  (Miller’s),  October  28,  “A  House 
Carpenter”  (apparently  a real  one),  replies  to  “Another 
Patriot.”  He  suffered  by  depreciating  currency  and  must 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


11 


recoup.  The  report  of  the  $3  combination  is  most  daring, 
infamous  and  false.  Let  him  produce  the  man  that 
demands  $3,  since  the  Evacuation  (by  the  British),  for  a 
simple  day’s  work.  For  information  he  states  the  enor- 
mous profits  of  a master  carpenter.  In  1773-4  a journey- 
man could  be  had  for  £35,  currency,  per  month,  say  27s  8d 
per  day,  and  the  master’s  charge  was  45s.  Now,  the  most 
ordinary  journeyman  cannot  be  obtained  under  'E&,  ster- 
ling, say  49s,  currency,  per  day.  A master  will  have  to 
ask  $2,  or  9s,  4d,  sterling,  or  65s,  which  is  16s  profit,  or 
Is,  4d  less  than  we  had.  Don’t  tell  our  brethren  in  the 
North  about  making  a winter-time  fortune  here.  Some 
have  been  here  many  winters  and  made  no  fortune  yet. 

South  Carolina  Gazette,  November  4.  “A  Mechanic” 
answers.  The  accusation  that  the  carpenters  have  extor- 
tionately  doubled  their  wages  is  a palpable  lie.  Their 
advance  is  only  one-half  and  the  most  moderate  demanded 
by  any  set  of  men  in  the  State.  Many  of  the  planters 
came  into  this  country  thirty  to  fifty  years  past,  emigrants 
from  the  lowest  classes  of  mankind  in  Europe;  their  indi- 
gence so  great  as  made  it  difficult  for  them  to  procure  an 
overseer’s  place,  and  meeting  with  great  indulgence  from 
the  merchants,  became  opulent,  etc.,  etc. 

South  Carolina  Gazette,  November  8.  ‘ ‘Another  Patriot” 
did  not  assert  that  there  was  a combination  for  $3,  but 
only  for  present  wages  (unspecified),  and  that  some  got  $3. 
He  cannot  supply  “Mechanic”  with  understanding,  etc. 

The  above  fragmentary  notes  are  based  on  several 
columns  of  print,  and  a careful  examination,  not  only  of 
Miller’s  Gazette,  about  1783,  but  also  of  Timothy’s  (all 
newspapers  were  then  called  “Gazettes”),  would  show 
much  other  interesting  data  as  to  labor  conditions. 

Mechanics  Organize  in  1794. 

The  mechanics  of  Charleston,  in  1794,  were  evidently 
men  of  high  character  and  ability,  for  in  February  of  that 
year  the  “Charleston  Mechanic  Society”  was  organized 
with  seventy-four  members  and  the  following  officers : 
Anthony  Toomer,  president ; J.  C.  Folker,  vice  president ; 


12 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


Samuel  Stent,  senior  warden  ; Jacob  Sass,  junior  warden  ; 
Basil  Lanneau,  treasurer  ; William  Rouse,  secretary  ; Benj. 
DuPre,  James  Allison,  Robert  Vardell  and  John  Johnson, 
stewards.  This  society  existed  certainly  until  1883.  Its 
aim  and  history  will  be  considered  later. 

From  the  Senate  Journals,  December  6,  1811,  it  appears 
that  Charleston  mechanics  were  again  seeking  special  legis- 
lation, Though  it  is  not  clear  that  the  negro  labor  problem 
of  that  day  was  necessarily  involved.  Here  is  the  record : 

“Captain  Kennedy,  from  the  committee  to  whom  was 
referred  the  petition  of  the  mechanics  of  the  City  of 
Charleston,  praying  that  a law  may  be  passed  the  more 
effectually  to  secure  them  a compensation  for  their  labours, 
submitted  a report. 

“Ordered  that  the  report  lie  on  the  table.” 

The  consideration  of  the  effect  of  negro  slavery  and 
negro  mechanics  upon  the  number  and  wages  of  white 
mechanics  is  important  and  might  be  considerably 
extended,  even  with  the  meagre  data  available,  but  it 
does  not  properly  come  within  the  scope  of  this  paper.  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  the  Hon.  Theodore  D.  Jervey,  of 
Charleston,  who  has  made  an  exhaustive  study  of  the 
negro  of  South  Carolina,  will  embody  his  researches  in 
book  form.  It  would  be  an  invaluable  work,  worthy  to 
rank  with  Bruce’s  Economic  History  of  Virginia. 

Apprentices  Organized  in  1841. 

Before  dismissing  the  ante-bellum  negro  mechanic  prob- 
lem, it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  scholarly  Dr.  Samuel 
Henry  Dickson,  as  late  as  1841,  in  an  address  before  the 
Apprentices’  Library  Society,  of  Charleston,  claims  that 
the  presence  of  the  negro  slave  is  a positive  advantage  to 
the  white  mechanic.  No  physician  in  South  Carolina, 
probably  none  in  the  South,  surpassed  him  in  his  knowl- 
edge of  man’s  physical  nature,  but  of  man  in  his  economic 
and  collective  capacity  he  knew  much  less,  and  the  signifi- 
cance of  these  protests  against  skilled  negro  labor  in  this 
State  (beginning,  perhaps,  even  earlier  than  1742)  was 
lost  upon  him.  He  says:  “Nor  ought  I to  omit  * * * 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


13 


to  dwell  upon  certain  special  advantages  which  belong  to 
the  Southern  operative  and  apprentice,  arising  from,  and 
inseparably  connected  with,  our  peculiar  institutions,  social 
and  domestic.  The  African,  of  whom  it  is  the  literal  and 
unquestioned  truth  to  say  that  he  is  less  fitted  by  nature 
for  mental  and  moral  culture,  and  more  particularly  suited 
to  a life  of  mere  animal  effort,  than  the  white  man,  occu- 
pies here  a place  which  it  is  always  irksome  to  a race 
better  organized  to  fill.  * * * The  sons  of  Ham  are 

made  for  the  useful  position  which  they  are  destined  to  fill 
among  us.  They  are  created  ‘hewers  of  wood  and  drawers 
of  water.’  ” 

And  yet,  perhaps,  at  the  very  time  Dr.  Dickson  spoke, 
certainly  a few  years  later,  two  mulatto  families,  the 
Ellisons,  of  Stateburg,  and  the  Westons,  of  Georgetown, 
were  making,  respectively,  the  best  cotton  gins  and  rice 
mills  in  South  Carolina. 

It  is  only  fair  to  the  great  and  good  physician,  who  was 
anything  but  a “negro-hater,”  to  quote  his  afterthought: 

“I  do  not  mean  to  leave  myself  liable  to  the  imputation 
of  a wish  to  inflict  ignorance  or  intellectual  imbecility  upon 
any  human  creature.  It  is  not  now  the  occasion  to  enter 
into  the  question  of  how  and  what  it  may  be  right  and 
proper  to  teach  the  slave  ; but  it  is  certain  that  the  gifts 
of  Providence  are  as  unequally  distributed  to  the  races  of 
men  as  they  are  to  the  individuals  of  these  several  races.” 

Printers  Among  The  First. 

As  will  be  shown  later,  the  printers  of  South  Carolina 
had  probably  organized  under  something  like  “union 
principles,”  as  early  as  1834,  but  their  action  and  pur- 
poses could  not  have  been  widely  known,  for  Dr.  Dickson 
tells  the  apprentices  of  Charleston,  in  1840,  “we  of  the 
South  need  no  ‘ten-hour’  bill”  to  protect  our  little  ones 
from  the  exhaustion  of  protected  toil.  We  require  no 
“trades  unions”  to  guard  the  journeyman  from  the  tyr- 
anny and  avarice  of  his  master  ; no  “Conspiracy  Laws”  to 
secure  the  wealthy  capitalist  or  contractor  from  destructive 
combinations  of  his  operators.”  There  were,  however, 


14 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


organizations  of  workingmen  for  patriotic,  social  and 
charitable  purposes  in  this  State  certainly  as  early  as 
1768,  and  probably  much  earlier.  Primarily,  there  is  no 
evidence  that  they  intended  to  set  a standard  or  control 
labor  or  frame  a scale  of  wages,  but  to  promote  brotherly 
love  and  to  raise  funds  “for  the  relief  of  such  of  us  as 
may,  by  misfortune,  be  reduced  to  indigence  and  distress.” 
It  was  the  mechanics  with  the  active  cooperation  and 
under  the  leadership  of  such  ardent  patriots  as  Christopher 
Gadsden,  and,  in  a lesser  degree,  William  Henry  Drayton, 
who  furnished  the  backbone  to  the  Revolutionary  move- 
ment, certainly  in  Charles  Town.  They,  rather  than  the 
cultured  graduates  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  the 
brilliant  young  lawyers  of  Lincoln’s  Inn  and  the  Middle 
Temple,  took  the  initiative  in  that  first  and  successful 
Rebellion. 


Mechanics  Gather. 

“liberty  tree” 

The  following  letter,  from  Charles  Town,  dated  Octo- 
ber 1,  1768,  and  published  thirty  days  later  in  the  Boston 
Chronicle,  tells  the  story  of  the  first  South  Carolina 
“Liberty  Tree.” 

“A  number  of  the  leading  mechanics  of  this  city  assem- 
bled under  some  trees  in  a field  adjacent  to  the  ropewalk  in 
order  to  select  six  gentlemen  to  represent  the  inhabitants 
of  Charles  Town  in  the  ensuing  General  Assembly,  which 
being  concluded  upon,  they  then  partook  of  a delightful 
entertainment,  which  had  been  provided  for  the  occasion. 
At  five  o’clock  in  the  afternoon  they  moved  to  a large  live 
oak  tree  in  Mr.  Mazyck’s  pasture  adjoining  to  Christopher 
Gadsden,  Esq,,  at  the  north  end  of  the  city,  which  they 
consecrated  by  the  name  of  the  ‘Tree  of  Liberty.’ 

“At  eight  o’clock  in  the  evening  the  company  marched 
back  to  the  city  with  forty-five  of  their  number  in  advance, 
each  bearing  a lighted  candle.  They  stopped  at  the  houses 
of  the  Governor  and  Lieutenant  Governor  to  give  toasts, 
praising  the  Massachusetts  Resolves  of  the  ninety-two 
members.  Then  they  repaired  to  the  long  room  in  Dillon’s 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


15 


Tavern,  and  used  ninety-two  glasses  in  drinking  ninety 
two  ‘loyal  and  representable  toasts,’  and  at  ten  o’clock 
they  broke  up,  having  spent  the  day  and  concluded  the 
evening  without  the  least  irregularity  happening.” 

General  Edward  McCrady,  in  his  invaluable  history  of 
South  Carolina,  gives  the  names  of  these  protagonists  of 
freedom,  the  Liberty  Tree  men,  and  well  he  might,  for 
in  his  veins  flowed  the  blood  of  one  of  them,  William 
Johnson,  the  blacksmith.  Dr.  Joseph  Johnson,  author  of 
the  ‘‘Traditions  of  the  Revolution,”  and  one  of  the  organ- 
izers and  for  many  years  president  of  the  Apprentices’ 
Library  Society,  and  the  late  Major  John  Johnson,  C.  S.  A., 
chief  engineer  at  Fort  Sumter,  and  afterward  for  many 
years  the  beloved  Rector  of  St.  Phillip’s  Church,  Charles- 
ton, were  justly  proud  of  their  descent  from  that  noble 
mechanic. 

Carpenters’  Early  Organization. 

The  newspaper  files  of  the  Charleston  papers,  running 
back  to  the  first  issue  in  1732,  and  the  almanacs  and  direc- 
tories published  in  the  closing  years  of  the  18th  and  during 
the  19th  century,  as  well  as  the  Statutes  at  Large  of  the 
State,  give,  practically,  all  the  information  available  as  to 
these  organizations.  Here  are  several  such  items. 

There  was  a ‘‘Carpenters’  Society”  in  1809 ; John  Mun- 
crieff,  president ; and  it  certainly  was  in  existence  in  1826, 
for  on  May  29th  of  that  year  the  funeral  of  one  of  its 
members  is  announced  in  the  Gazette,  as  follows : 

‘‘The  Members  of  the  Carpenters’  Society  are  requested 
to  attend  the  funeral  of  Mr.  Matthews  ( ) this  morning 

at  ten  o’clock,  from  his  late  residence,  No. Tradd 

Street. 

‘‘Abraham  P.  Reeves,  Secretary.” 

Charleston’s  First  Clerks’  Union. 

The  Gazette  of  June  6,  1825,  has  the  following  notice, 
which  would  seem  to  indicate  that  at  that  early  date  the 
clerks  in  Charleston  stores  were  organized  : 


16 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


“An  adjourned  meeting  of  the  Clerks  will  take  place 
this  evening  at  Mr.  Seyle’s  Room,  King  Street,  at  8 o’clock, 
to  receive  the  report  of  the  committee,  appointed  at  the 
last  meeting,  and  transact  other  business  of  importance. 

“N.  B.— A general  attendance  is  requested. 

“T.  J.  Horsey,  Secretary.” 

The  people  of  South  Carolina,  during  the  first  four 
decades  of  the  nineteenth  century,  were  almost  wholly 
agricultural,  and  the  majority  of  them  did  not  care  for  an 
industrial  revolution.  Ninety  per  cent.,  perhaps,  of  the 
work  on  the  plantations  was  slave  labor,  and  in  much  of 
the  low  country,  then,  as  now,  only  negroes  could  work 
the  whole  year  round.  Mr.  Calhoun,  whom  the  majority 
of  the  Carolinians  regarded  as  almost  infallible,  thought 
that  the  South’s  prosperity  was  bound  up  in  agriculture, 
and  George  McDuffie  thought  so  too,  though  at  one  time 
he  had  threatened  to  rival  the  Northern  manufacturers  by 
running  cotton  mills  with  negro  labor. 

Robert  Y.  Hayne  always  maintained  that  the  negro 
never  could  be  a successful  cotton-mill  operative,  and  held 
that  “wherever  free  labor  is  put  in  full  and  successful 
operation,  slave  labor  ceases  to  be  profitable,”  and  McDuf- 
fie finally  concurred  with  Hayne  as  to  the  unfitness  of  the 
negro  for  work  in  cotton  mills. 

Many  mechanics  unquestionably  flourished  in  this  State 
during  that  period,  but  the  presence  of  negro  mechanics, 
and  the  passion,  so  to  speak,  for  agriculture,  would  seem 
to  account  for  the  following  plea  for  support  of  white 
workmen,  which  you  may  read  in  the  Gazette  of  March  4, 
1828,  in  a letter  signed  “Charleston”: 

“It  is  to  us  a matter  of  astonishment  that  such  an  apa- 
thy should  pervade  our  community  against  the  encourage- 
ment of  mechanics  generally.  Persons  frequently  send  to 
the  North  for  what  they  could  get  cheaper  at  home,  and 
better.  Were  they  for  a moment  to  reflect,  they  would 
find  that  by  supporting  our  own  mechanics,  they  would 
keep  at  home  that  money,  which,  on  the  other  hand, 
‘enriches  our  neighbor,  but  makes  us  poor  indeed.’  Let 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


17 


those  who  are  in  the  habit  of  doing  this  reflect  for  a 
moment,  and  we  are  persuaded  our  remarks  will  not  be 
thrown  away.” 

In  Hrabowski’s  Directory  for  1809,  appears  the  title  and 
list  of  officers  of  the  ‘‘South  Carolina  Society  for  the  Pro- 
motion of  Domestic  Arts  and  Manufactories.”  It  probably 
could  not  live  up  to  its  long  name,  though  it  had  for  its 
president,  David  Ramsay,  the  historian ; vice  president, 
Col.  William  Rouse  ; treasurer,  William  Hasell  Gibbes,  an 
eminent  lawyer;  and  secretary,  Andrew  Bay.  Its  ‘‘cor- 
responding committee”  included  an  artist,  a printer,  sev- 
eral leading  lawyers,  three  doctors  and  several  mechanics. 
It  could  scarcely  be  called  a laboring  man’s  society,  for  the 
names  of  three  of  its  officers  appear  the  same  year  on  the 
directorate  of  the  ‘‘South  Carolina  Homespun  Company,” 
of  which  the  versatile  Dr.  John  L.  E.  W.  Shecut  was  the 
president. 

If  the  Homespun  Company  lasted  so  long,  Dr.  Shecut 
may  have  inserted  this  advertisement,  which  may  be  seen 
in  the  Gazette,  March  11,  1826 : 

‘‘Weavers  Wanted— A few  good  weavers,  accustomed 
to  the  manufacturing  of  cotton  goods.  To  such,  liberal 
wages  and  steady  employment  will  be  given,  on  producing 
certificates  of  character,  etc.  Apply  at  No.  384,  King 
Street.” 


The  Early  Labor  Press. 

The  publication  of  labor  papers  is  fairly  good  evidence 
of  the  existence  of  organized  labor,  and  there  is  a strong 
presumption  of  an  effort  to  raise  or  fix  wages.  Professor 
John  R.  Commons,  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  in  a 
tentative  list  of  130  labor  papers  published  in  the  United 
States  from  1825  to  1867,  gives  the  Southern  Free  Press, 
of  Charleston,  among  the  ten  papers  published  as  early  as 
1829. 

For  the  reason  presented,  perhaps  with  tiresome  itera- 
tion in  this  article,  viz  : that  the  then  leading  slave  State 
would  probably  be  the  last  to  have  organized  labor— the 
writer  hesitates  to  claim  for  South  Carolina’s  metropolis 


18 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


the  honor  of  having,  possibly,  the  first  labor  paper  in  the 
Union,  but  as  early  as  1809  the  city  directory  contains  the 
following  item  : 

“Sargent,  John  H— — , printer  and  proprietor  of  the 
Strength  of  the  People,  113  Queen  Street.” 

In  the  large  collection  of  broadsides  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Historical  Society,  at  Boston,  is  one  entitled  : 

“The  Philometer, 
the  Guage 
of 

His  Majesty’s  Love  Towards  the 
Americans.” 

It  is  composed  of  four  newspaper  columns  of  matter, 
made  up  in  a one-page  form,  under  the  above  head,  and 
with  a sort  of  colophon  in  the  corner  stating  that  The  Ark, 
a newspaper,  is  about  to  be  published  by  John  H.  Sargent, 
at  Charleston,  S.  C.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  if 
The  Ark  was  ever  floated  ; if  so,  it  must  have  been  some- 
time in  1810-11-12.  The  only  other  reference  to  Sargent, 
known  to  the  writer,  is  in  Cardozo’s  “Reminiscences  of 
Charleston,”  where,  referring  to  newspapers  in  1812,  the 
veteran  economist  and  journalist  says  : “It  was  about  this 
period  that  a paper  called  the  Brazen  Nose  was  published 
by  a Mr.  Sargent,  but  of  too  puerile  a character  to  merit 
further  notice.”  This  could  hardly  have  been  a labor 
paper,  and  one  wonders  where  the  amazing  title  came 
from,  for  no  Oxonian  would  publish  “a  paper  of  puerile 
character.” 

The  Strength  of  the  People  may  or  may  not  have  been  a 
labor  paper,  though  the  title  is  suggestive.  It  is  highly 
probable  that  there  is  not  a copy  of  the  paper  in  existence, 
nor  of  Sargent’s  other  ventures,  The  Ark  and  the  Brazen 
Nose. 

When  we  come  to  the  Southern  Free  Press  we  are  upon 
surer  ground.  It  is  mentioned  by  McMaster  in  the  chapter 
on  labor  conditions,  in  Vol.  5,  of  his  “History  of  the  People 
of  the  United  States.”  It  was  also  advertised  in  the  Free 
Inquirer,  of  New  York,  on  December  26,  1829,  where  it  is 
stated  that  the  paper  is  addressed  to  “Mechanics  and 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


19 


operatives.”  That  there  was  such  a paper  cannot  be 
questioned,  for  the  erratic  Mrs.  Anne  Royall,  who  visited 
Charleston  on  her  Southern  tour,  in  the  second  series  of 
her  “Black  Book”  (Washington,  1831),  says : “The  editor 
of  the  Southern  Free  Press  called  on  me,  and  from  his 
appearance  and  conversation,  I should  suppose  that  he 
received  very  little  encouragement.  Freedom,  or  rather, 
liberty,  is  dead  in  the  United  States,  particularly  in  the 
Middle  and  Southern  States  which  seem  enamored  with 
slavery,  and  that  of  the  most  despotic  kind,  too.” 

Those  “New  South”  Southerners,  who  speak  of  their 
slave-holding  ancestors  with  bated  breath  should,  however, 
note  Mrs.  Royall’s  conclusion  : 

“I  am  no  advocate  of  slavery,  but  as  to  the  cruelty,  so 
much  talked  of,  of  masters  to  slaves,  I saw  no  instance  of 
it ; so  far  from  it,  they  are  ten  times  better  fed  and  better 
clothed  than  the  poor  white  people  of  Philadelphia  and 
New  York,  and  particularly  Washington  city.” 

It  is  a notable  fact  that  the  distinguished  Roman  Catholic 
Bishop  England  used  almost  the  same  language,  mutatis 
mutandis,  in  an  open  letter  to  the  great  Irish  statesman, 
Daniel  O’Connell,  who  was  almost  as  much  agitated  over 
the  alleged  condition  of  slaves  in  the  Southern  States,  as 
over  the  sufferings  of  his  beloved  countrymen. 

Miss  Helen  L.  Sumner,  a recognized  authority  on  early 
labor  conditions  in  the  United  States,  says  of  the  Free 
Press:  “We  have  not  succeeded  in  locating  a single  copy, 
and  very  probably  the  paper  was  short  lived.”  Diligent 
inquiry  among  the  old  printers  of  Charleston  five  or  six 
years  ago  failed  to  discover  any  recollection,  not  to  say 
copy,  of  the  Free  Press.  The  late  Thomas  C.  Neville,  then 
the  “dean”  of  the  Typographical  Corps  of  South  Carolina, 
had  never  heard  of  it,  saying  in  a letter  to  the  writer,  in 
November,  1905:  “I  am  unable  to  give  any  information 
that  concerns  Trade  Unions,  or  organs  advocating  labor, 
back  of  1845.” 

In  the  (Augusta)  Southern  Banner,  of  November  19, 
1836,  (for  a copy  of  which,  as  for  other  notes,  I am 
indebted  to  that  accomplished  Georgian,  Prof.  U.  B.  Phil- 
lips), appears  an  article  headed  “Augusta  Typographical 


20 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


Society.”  It  relates  mainly  to  Gen.  Duff  Green’s  “Liter- 
ary Society,”  and  to  the  novel  Machiavellian  schemes  of 
that  well-known  journalist  and  publisher,  whose  schemes 
created  a furore  among  the  printers  of  the  early  thirties 
in  Washington  and  several  Southern  States.  This  article 
will  especially  interest  Columbians,  some  of  whom  may 
learn  from  old  letters  or  diaries  what  became  of  the 
“Literary  Society.”  If  the  Augusta  typos  judged  Green 
fairly,  “Literary  Society”  was  as  much  a misnomer  as 
was  the  “Charleston  Charitable  Association,”  a nefarious 
lottery  conducted  by  eminent  Republicans  during  the  era 
of  good  stealing. 

Duff  Green  will  be  remembered  as  a prominent  politician 
and  editor  of  The  United  States  Telegraph,  a leading 
Washington  paper  in  1830.  His  eldest  daughter,  Margaret, 
married  John  C.  Calhoun’s  eldest  son,  Andrew,  and  his 
newspaper  was  a powerful  factor  in  Democratic  political 
circles  for  many  years. 

Here  is  the  article  from  the  Banner;  the  first  four 
paragraphs  relate  solely  to  Georgia  printers,  but  are  of 
interest  because  of  their  early  organization  : 

“At  a meeting  of  the  journeymen  printers  of  Augusta, 
held  on  Saturday  evening,  November  5,  Mr.  Sidney  S. 
Browne  was  called  to  the  chair  and  Mr.  James  McCafferty 
appointed  secretary.  The  object  of  the  meeting  being 
explained  by  the  chairman,  the  following  resolutions  were 
submitted  by  Mr.  J.  T.  Blain  and  unanimously  adopted  : 
“ ‘ Resolved , That  we  form  ourselves  into  an  association 
under  the  title  of  the  Typographical  Society  of  Augusta, 
Georgia,  deeming  it  highly  expedient  for  the  benefit  of 
this  class. 

‘ 4 4 Resolved , That  a committee  be  appointed  to  draft  a 
constitution  and  by-laws  for  the  government  of  the  same, 
and  that  this  meeting,  considering  the  society  duly  formed, 
enter  into  an  election  of  officers.’  ” 

“The  following  officers  were  thereupon  elected  : George 
Robertson,  president ; Sidney  S.  Browne,  vice  president ; 
James  McCafferty,  secretary  and  treasurer ; Edmund 
McGowan,  steward ; J.  T.  Blain,  T.  J.  Echols  and  W.  H. 
Goodman,  standing  committee. 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


21 


The  election  of  officers  having  been  completed,  Mr. 
Echols  offered  the  following  preamble  and  resolutions, 
which  were  unanimously  adopted  : 

“ ‘Whereas,  The  efforts  of  Gen.  Duff  Green,  of  Washing- 
ton City,  to  carry  his  Literary  Society  into  effect  in 
Columbia,  South  Carolina,  is  likely  so  far  to  succeed  ; and 
‘ ‘ ‘ Whereas,  We  conceive  it  our  bounden  duty  to  remon- 
strate against  the  establishment  of  a system  as  projected 
in  Washington  City,  and  which  produced  effects  in  opposing 
it,  that  are  regretted  by  all ; Be  it  therefore 

“ ‘ Resolved , That  we  disapprove  of  Gen.  Green’s  inten- 
tion to  establish  a society  sufficiently  termed  the  ‘ ‘Literary 
Society  of  South  Carolina,”  which  has  been  incorporated 
by  the  Legislature  of  said  State. 

“ ‘ Resolved , That  we  consider  it  an  attempt  to  monopo- 
lize the  printing  of  the  State  aforesaid  by  underworking 
resident  printers,  whose  conduct  and  deportment  have 
always  insured  the  respect  of  our  class  and  the  citizens  of 
the  community  in  which  they  live. 

“ ‘Resolved,  That  we  solicit  and  recommend  to  the  jour- 
neyman printers  of  Columbia,  S.  C.,  to  form  a society  and 
establish  a scale  of  prices  to  be  suited  to  their  expenses, 
and  that  we  will  expect  every  one  to  belong  to  our  class, 
and  who  considers  himself  a man  of  principle  to  abide  by 
those  rates  and  to  assist  in  the  maintenance  of  the  same. 

“ ‘ Resolved , That  this  is  the  opinion  of  this  meeting, 
that  no  journeyman  could  consistently  with  principles  of 
honor  work  in  any  office  conducted  in  such  a manner. 

“ ‘ Resolved , That  we  disclaim  any  intention  of  injuring 
Gen.  Green  in  the  opinion  of  the  South,  but  this  design  in 
Washington  City  has  led  us  to  anticipate  a similar  attempt 
here.’  ” 

‘‘On  motion  of  Mr.  J.  T.  Watson,  ‘ Resolved , That  the 
proceedings  of  this  meeting  be  published,  and  that  the 
papers  throughout  the  South  be  requested  to  copy  them., 
‘‘Sidney  S.  Browne,  Chairman. 
‘‘James  McCafferty,  Secretary.” 


22 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


Duff  Green,  the  Printers’  Banquo. 

The  explanation  of  the  foregoing  remonstrance  of  the 
Augusta  printers  against  the  machinations  of  Gen.  Duff 
Green  is  to  be  found  in  Ethelbert  Stewart’s  documentary 
history  of  “The  Early  Organizations  of  Printers.”  Green, 
in  1834,  was  editor  of  The  United  States  Telegraph,  and 
also  printer  to  the  National  Senate,  and  formulated  a plan 
to  settle  the  apprentice  question  which  was  bitterly 
opposed  by  the  Columbia  Typographical  Society  of  Wash- 
ington. “The  apprentice  question  had  been  a source  of 
infinite  trouble  to  the  societies  from  the  very  first.  From 
time  to  time  the  term  of  apprenticeship  had  been  length- 
ened by  various  societies  increasing  it  from  three  to  four, 
then  from  four  to  five  years,  in  the  vain  hope  of  reducing 
the  competition  from  that  source.  But  there  was  no 
effective  means  of  preventing  apprentices  from  running 
away,  and  the  longer  apprenticeship  only  increased  the 
temptation  to  do  so,  hence  made  matters  worse.  * * * 

The  fact  that  a runaway  apprentice  could  and  would  be  so 
employed,  at  rates  higher,  to  say  the  least,  than  his 
apprentice  rates,  also  operated  to  put  a premium  on  run- 
ning away.  * * * In  1833,  however,  Gen.  Green  began 
employing  ‘two-thirders’  on  his  paper,  The  United  States 
Telegraph,  and  later  introduced  a large  number  of  boys  as 
apprentices  in  doing  the  Government  printing.  He  now 
proposed  (1834)  to  establish  what  he  called  the  Washing- 
ton Institute,  but  which  was  termed  by  printers  a manual 
labor  school.  In  this  institution  he  proposed  to  take  200 
boys  each  year  and  teach  them  the  printing  trade,  allowing 
them  $2  a week  each  for  their  work,  which  $2  was  not, 
however,  to  be  paid  to  them,  but  kept  as  a trust  fund  and 
invested  by  their  employer  for  such  of  them  as  should 
remain  with  him  the  full  period.” 

As  a consequence,  the  Columbia  (D.  C.)  Typographical 
Society  held  a number  of  meetings,  declared  that  “we  look 
upon  the  proposed  measure  of  Duff  Green,  editor  of  The 
United  States  Telegraph,  as  visionary  in  its  final  results, 
subversive  of  our  rights  as  journeymen  printers,  and 
destructive  of  the  profession  to  which  we  belong;”  and 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


23 


after  unsuccessful  conferences  with  Green,  sent  a protest 
to  every  printers’  society,  and  even  to  unorganized  printers 
throughout  the  United  States. 

Among  other  responses  that  came  were  two  from  the 
typographical  societies  of  Louisville,  Ky.,  and  Charleston, 
S.  C.,  approving  the  protest  against  the  Duff  Green  school 
for  printers.  Stewart  says  this  is  the  first  reference  found 
to  these  societies,  and  it  is  thus  clear  that  the  printers  of 
Charleston  were  formally  organized  so  early  as  1834 ; how 
much  earlier  it  is  now  perhaps  impossible  to  ascertain. 

According  to  Ethelbert  Stewart,  printers  had  organized 
in  Washington  in  1815  (“the  oldest  existing  union  of 
printers,  if  not  the  oldest  union  of  any  trade  in  the  United 
States  ! ”) ; in  New  Orleans  in  1830;  in  Richmond,  Charles- 
ton and  Louisville  in  1834;  in  Nashville  in  1835;  in  Mobile, 
Augusta,  Ga.,  and  Columbia,  S.  C.,  in  1836,  and  in  Savan- 
nah in  1850.  All  of  these  organizations,  after  varying 
terms  of  years,  became  moribund  and  died;  but  were  evi- 
dently reorganized;  New  Orleans,  for  instance,  having  had 
two  societies  before  the  organization  of  the  present  union 
in  1852. 

An  important  indirect  result  of  the  Duff  Green  schemes 
was  the  organization  of  the  National  Typographical  Society 
in  Washington  in  1836;  neither  Charleston  nor  Columbia, 
however,  were  among  the  six  cities  sending  delegations 
thereto. 

The  indomitable  Green,  “the  printers’  Banquo,  ” after 
leaving  Washington,  attempted  to  organize  “The  American 
Literary  Company”  (chartered  in  this  State,  as  has  been 
shown,  as  the  “Literary  Society  of  South  Carolina”),  with 
headquarters  at  Columbia,  ‘ ‘his  plan  still  being  to  employ 
boys  under  the  guise  of  teaching  them  a trade,”  but  it  was 
doubtless  opposed  by  the  South  Carolina  printers,  who  had 
been  warned  against  Green  by  the  craft  in  Augusta. 

Columbia  Printers  and  Mechanics. 

Mention  has  been  made  of  the  existence  of  a typograph- 
ical society  in  Columbia  in  1836,  which  in  1842  sent  out  a 
“rat  list,”  and  which,  Stewart  thinks,  went  down  in  a 
strike  that  year.  In  The  Columbia  Telegraph,  of  Novem- 


24 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


ber  8,  1847,  appears  a notice  of  “The  Mechanics’  Associa- 
tion.” It  was  probably  of  a social  and  charitable  charac- 
ter. The  late  Julian  A.  Selby,  the  venerable  printer  and 
publisher,  claimed  that  there  was  no  organization  of  work- 
men in  Columbia  before  1861,  for  other  than  social  and 
charitable  purposes,  except  the  typographical  union;  but 
he  could  give  no  facts  or  dates  bearing  on  the  subject. 

Following  is  the  roll  of  officers  of  “The  Mechanics’ 
Association”  of  Columbia,  in  November,  1847 : President, 
Joel  Stevenson  ; first  vice  president,  Charles  Beck  ; second 
vice  president,  J.  S.  Boatwright ; recording  secretary, 
J.  Lomas ; corresponding  secretary,  E.  A.  Young ; treas- 
urer, J.  M.  Miller.  In  that  year  the  association  attempted, 
and  with  some  degree  of  success,  to  raise  funds  for  a 
library  and  reading  room,  the  committee  on  organization 
consisting  of  Charles  Beck,  John  Davis,  George  W.  Wright, 
Levi  Root,  George  Shields,  William  Beard,  H.  P.  Dougal, 
J.  N.  Scofield,  Eli  Killian,  J.  S.  Boatwright  and  J.  Brown, 
with  David  Shepherd  as  chairman.  How  large  a library  was 
assembled  is  not  known,  but  the  writer  has  a book  label 
bearing  the  legend:  “Mechanics’  Association  Library, 

Columbia.  No.  47.” 

In  the  Columbia  Telegraph  of  March  31,  1851,  is  a notice 
of  the  organization  of  the  Columbia  Typographical  Society, 
stating  that  “At  a meeting  of  the  Journeymen  Printers  of 
the  city  * * * on  Saturday  evening,  1st  of  March  inst., 

the  committee  appointed  at  a previous  meeting  reported  a 
constitution  which,  after  some  very  slight  modifications, 
was  adopted  and  signed  by  the  following  members  of  the 
fraternity: 

Louis  M.  Jones,  J.  L.  Pennington, 


T.  F.  Greneker, 
W.  Taylor  Smith, 
E.  A.  Bronson, 

V.  Little, 

H.  McCollom, 

M.  Stafford, 

R.  McKnight, 

W.  D.  Lane, 

John  P.  DeGraaf, 


C.  C.  Sower, 
Jos.  S.  Bean, 


E.  G.  McKnight, 
Conn  O’Neill, 

J.  P.  M.  Calvo, 


E.  Johnson, 

A.  Cummings, 
T.  H.  Walsh, 
A.  A.  Haight. 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


25 


The  following  members  were  respectively  nominated 
and  elected  officers  for  the  ensuing  year:  President,  L.  M. 
Jones;  vice  president,  T.  F.  Greneker;  secretary  and 
treasurer,  A.  A.  Haight;  standing  committee,  J.  P.  M. 
Calvo,  E.  A.  Bronson,  and  Robert  McCollom. 

The  society  adjourned  to  meet  the  first  Saturday  in 
April. 

Another  Labor  Paper. 

The  Columbia  Daily  Telegraph,  November,  1847,  gives 
the  following  chilling  notice  (it  does  not  even  “damn” 
with  “faint  praise”)  of  what  appears  to  be  another  effort, 
before  1862,  to  establish  a labor  paper  in  Charleston: 

“mechanics’  advocate.” 

“The  above  is  the  title  of  a small  sheet  published  in 
Charleston,  under  the  editorial  management  of  James 
M.  A.  Henderson,  at  $2  per  annum,  the  first  number  of 
which  is  now  before  us.  We  would  prefer  a longer 
acquaintance  before  expressing  ourselves  as  to  its  merits. 
Mr.  L.  P.  Ashby,  at  Mr.  A.  S.  Johnston’s  book  store,  is 
agent  for  Columbia.” 

Union  Minute  Book,  1859-1862. 

By  a lucky  chance  the  writer  discovered  under  a pile  of 
rubbish,  fifteen  or  more  years  ago,  in  the  Elliott  Street 
storeroom  of  The  News  and  Courier,  the  last  ante-bellum 
minute  book  of  “Charleston  Typographical  Union  No.  43,” 
and  “Southern  Typographical  Union  No.  1.”  The  last 
person  who  had  the  book  in  charge  was  so  careless  or 
ignorant  of  its  value  that  he  used  it  largely  for  a scrap- 
book, pasting  newspaper  clippings  and  pictures  over  nearly 
twenty  pages  of  the  minutes.  This  book  records  the  min- 
utes from  August  27,  1859,  to  January  16,  1862.  Although 
three  pages  of  these  first  minutes  can  only  be  partly  deci- 
phered, owing  to  the  news  clippings,  it  appears  that  this 
meeting  was  the  first  held  after  that  for  preliminary 
organization— or  reorganization,  “for  Mr.  R.  A.  Britton, 
chairman  of  the  committee  appointed  to  transcribe  the 
constitution  and  by-laws  in  a book  for  the  purpose  of 


26 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


receiving  the  signatures  of  members,  reported  that  the 
committee  had  performed  their  duty  to  the  best  of  their 
ability.”  Among  other  resolutions  adopted,  indicating 
that  this  Union  had  just  organized,  are  those  authorizing 
the  secretary  ‘‘to  apply  to  the  National  Typographical 
Union  for  a charter  providing  for  ‘‘printing  the  consti- 
tution and  by-laws  and  making  permanent  arrangements 
for  a place  of  meeting.”  An  important  item  is  the  pro- 
posal to  appoint  “a  committee  to  report  a scale  of  prices 
for  the  government  of  this  Union.”  This  provoked  con- 
siderable discussion ; ' but  it  is  pleasant  to  read  this  last 
paragraph  in  the  minutes  of  the  first  regular  meeting  of 
‘‘Charleston  Typographical  Union  No.  43:”  ‘‘Mr.  R.  A. 

Britton  begged  the  attention  of  his  brother  printers  for  a 
few  minutes.  He  was,  he  said,  perfectly  aware  that  this 
was  a secret  association— a Trade  Union— and  that  its 
business  was  not  properly  to  be  discussed  on  the  street ; 
but,  he  had  been  asked  by  parties  not  belonging  to  this 
Union  questions  relating  to  it,  which  he  had  answered. 
He  had  been  asked  : ‘Was  this  Union  the  preliminary  of 

a strike?’  He  had  said:  ‘No.’  He  had  told  them  this 
Union  was  formed  under  peaceful  auspices,  at  a time 
when  all  were  satisfied  with  the  present  scale  (of  prices?) ; 
when  peace  and  harmony  pervaded  the  circles  of  employer 
and  employed.  He  had  told  them  that  the  Union  had 
been  formed  not  to  redress  any  grievance  or  to  take 
measures  to  strengthen  a strike,  but  to  unite  themselves 
with  the  fraternities  of  other  cities.”  The  officers  selected 
at  this,  the  first  regular  meeting,  were  : President,  C.  A.  D. 
Church ; vice  president,  John  F.  Britton  (Mr.  William 
Estill,  Jr.,  declining  the  nomination);  secretary,  Joseph 
S.  Bean ; treasurer,  T.  C.  Neville ; door-keeper,  James 
G.  Lynch. 

Scale  of  Prices,  I860. 

Routine  proceedings  mainly  fill  the  pages  of  the  book, 
until  the  meeting  of  March  3,  1860,  when  a special  com- 
mittee reported  the  Scale  of  Prices.  The  report  is  too 
long  for  insertion  here,  but  would  doubtless  be  interest- 
ing for  comparison  with  present  prices.  The  charge  for 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


27 


“plain  matter  in  the  English  language”  is  “38  cents  per 
1000  ems,  for  manuscript  or  printed  copy,  on  all  letters 
from  Pica  to  Agate,  inclusive.”  The  general  subdivisions 
are  “Newspapers,”  morning  and  evening  ; “Book  and  Job 
work,”  and  “Press  work.”  The  report  was  adopted,  the 
scale  to  go  into  operation  on  the  first  of  May  following, 
and  a committee  was  appointed  “to  confer  with  the  pro- 
prietors and  inform  them  of  the  action  of  the  Union.” 
The  committee  consisted  of  R.  A.  Britton  for  The  Mercury ; 
J.  G.  Lynch,  Evening  News;  Oran  Bassett,  The  Courier ; 
William  Estill  for  Walker,  Evans  & Cogswell  Co.;  E.  G. 
Murden  for  Harper  & Calvo. 

On  May  26,  1860,  the  Union,  after  much  discussion,  by 
a vote  of  15  to  13,  “ Resolved , That  on  and  after  1st  of 
September  next,  no  member  of  this  Union  shall  be  allowed 
to  work  in  any  office  where  hands  are  employed  not  mem- 
bers of  this  Union  ;”  but  on  June  30th  next,  on  motion  of 
Mr.  T.  C.  Neville,  that  resolution  was  “expunged  from 
the  minutes.”  The  meetings  of  June  23d  and  30th  are 
largely  devoted  to  the  discussion  and  attempted  settlement 
of  a “difference  that  had  occurred  in  the  office  of  Walker, 
Evans  & Cogswell  Co.  in  reference  to  blank  pages,”  the 
printer  and  the  Union  claiming  that  payment  should  be 
made  for  three  pages,  while  the  firm  claimed  that  the 
“phat  take”  should  be  limited  to  one  page. 

On  July  28,  1860,  “communications  were  read  from  Cin- 
cinnati Union  No.  3,  containing  a list  of  rats,  and  from 
New  Orleans  Union  No.  17,  containing  a list  of  delinquents, 
which  was  received  as  information.” 

The  officers  elected  on  August  25,  1860,  the  last  anniver- 
sary meeting  under  the  old  political  regime,  were:  Presi- 
dent, John  F.  Britton;  vice  president,  James  Martin; 
secretary,  Jonas  Howe;  treasurer,  William  Estill,  Jr.; 
doorkeeper,  J.  G.  Lynch. 

A Costly  Banquet,  or  None. 

As  early  as  the  March  meeting,  and  several  times  there- 
after, the  matter  of  celebrating  the  anniversary  by  a ban- 
quet had  been  discussed.  At  the  monthly  meeting  in  May 


28 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


Mr.  R.  A.  Britton  had  reported  for  the  committee,  that  he 
had  ‘ ‘conferred  with  several  caterers  and  that  it  could  not 
be  procured  for  less  than  $5  per  member,  ’ ’ and,  on  motion 
of  Mr.  H.  P.  Cooke,  the  committee  was  discharged  from 
further  consideration;  eminently  wise  action  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  the  total  receipts  of  the  Union  for  the  month  had 
been  $24.  But  the  banquet  question  was  not  finally  settled 
until  August,  when  a caterer  submitted  the  following  esti- 
mate: “I  will  furnish  you  a good  supper  for  forty  members 
for  $2.50  for  each  member,  with  liquors  and  segars.  Or  I 
will  furnish  you  with  a cold  collation,  with  two  bowls  of 
punch  and  one  bowl  of  Sherry  cobbler,  for  $1.50  for  each 
member.”  This  offer  was  not  accepted,  and  there  is  no 
record  in  the  minutes  of  any  banquet  at  the  anniversary 
meeting;  possibly  the  high  livers  insisted  upon  ‘‘$5  per 
member”  or  nothing. 

At  the  annual  meeting  Treasurer  Neville  reported  the 
expenditure  of  $103.88,  leaving  a balance  on  hand  (July 
28,  1860)  and  in  bank,  of  $92.88. 

During  the  year  the  applications  for  membership  by 
letter  were  sixty-seven;  by  card,  thirty-five;  withdrawal 
cards  were  issued  to  thirty-six  applicants,  five  forfeited 
membership  and  five  resigned  from  the  Union,  having 
‘‘retired  from  business.”  The  above  figures  are  valuable 
for  comparison  with  latter-day  conditions,  but  more  inter- 
esting still,  perhaps,  was  the  ‘‘disciplining”  of  C.  E. 
Chichester,  a recalcitrant  printer.  This  was  no  other  than 
the  young  northern  printer  who  became  captain  of  the 
Charleston  Zouaves,  who  distinguished  himself  as  an  artil- 
lery officer  at  Battery  Wagner  and  throughout  the  war; 
afterward  studied  theology  and  became  a Presbyterian 
minister,  and  whose  bones  now  lie,  by  his  own  request, 
in  the  Confederate  lot  in  Magnolia  among  the  500  or  more 
soldiers  who  died  in  defence  of  Charleston.  There  were 
as  gallant  soldiers  as  Mr.  Chichester  in  Union  No.  43, 
but  none  of  its  members,  perhaps,  attained  so  high  dis- 
tinction in  arts  and  arms  as  their  brother  printer  from 
Pennsylvania. 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


29 


Chichester  Disciplined. 

It  appears  that  Mr.  Chichester  and  five  other  members 
of  the  Union  were  employed  by  Walker,  Evans  & Cogs- 
well; that  the  Union  claimed  that  such  printers  were 
entitled  to  payment  for  three  blank  pages  in  “jobs”  of  a 
certain  character,  while  the  firm  allowed  payment  for  only 
one  blank  page;  that  when  complaint  was  made  to  the  firm 
by  its  union  printers  all  of  them  except  Chichester  signed 
it,  he  claiming  “that  he  could  not  conscientiously  sign  the 
paper,  not  believing  that  the  men  were  entitled  to  such 
blanks.”  There  were  two  reports  to  the  Union,  the 
majority  of  the  committee  merely  stating  the  facts  and 
making  no  recommendation;  the  minority  making  a 
lengthy  detailed  report,  concluding  with  the  following 
recommendations : 

“That  Mr.  C.  E.  Chichester  be  summoned  by  the  secre- 
tary in  writing  to  appear  before  this  Union,  and  that  the 
president  publicly  reprimand  him,  and  warn  him  that  if 
he  be  guilty  of  the  same  conduct  again,  his  name  will  be 
published  as  a ‘rat’. 

“That  in  case  he  refuses  to  come  forward  at  the  next 
regular  meeting,  he  will  be  published  as  a ‘rat’.” 

The  Majority  Must  Rule. 

The  report  of  the  minority,  signed  by  H.  P.  Cooke,  chair- 
man, was  adopted  by  the  Union,  and  is,  unfortunately,  too 
long  for  insertion  here.  “He  knew,”  said  the  minority, 
“it  was  the  order  of  the  Union  for  him  to  sign  a letter 
addressed  to  his  employer,  and,  consequently,  his  action 
was  that  of  defiance.  * * * Divine  law  teaches  us  that 

those  who  are  not  for  us  are  against  us.  * * * There 
were  others  who  did  not  think  we  were  entitled  to  the 
blanks,  but  who  abided  by  the  decision  of  the  Union,  and 
accordingly  signed  the  letter  to  the  employers,  claiming 
the  blanks.” 

Chairman  Cooke  Says:  “Why  should  we  allow  a person 
to  remain  a member  of  this  Union,  when  he  not  only  dis- 
regards our  action,  but  takes  ground  against  us?”  and 
later  on  he  quotes,  “as  very  good  authority,  indeed,”  the 


30 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


philosopher  Paley,  who  says:  “Where  there  is  a right, 
there  must  be  a corresponding  obligation,”  and  adds, 
“now  if  he  had  a right  to  oppose  us,  please  inform  your 
committee  where  our  obligation  abides. 

“Your  action  tonight  will  settle  great  points  that  will 
arise  at  some  future  period.  Perhaps  when  our  clay  has 
returned  to  clay  and  another  generation  has  taken  our 
places,  this  same  question  may  arise,  and  remember,  gen- 
tlemen, you  this  night  make  a precedent.  * * * If  you 

sustain  this  gentleman  tonight  and  tomorrow  you  strike, 
you  cannot  call  on  me  to  cooperate  with  you;  for,  if  it  does 
not  suit  my  interest  to  strike,  bear  in  mind,  I claim  this 
precedent  to  sustain  me  in  not  striking.” 

In  conclusion,  the  committee  disapproves  of  any  nominal 
fine,  such  as  twenty-five  cents,  or  suspension  for  a short 
time,  but  recommends  the  public  reprimand  and  warning 
already  mentioned.  The  grand  finale  of  the  whole  matter 
is  found  in  the  following  paragraph  in  the  minutes  of  the 
next  meeting:  “Mr.  C.  E.  Chichester  having  appeared 
before  the  Union,  the  president  administered  to  him  a 
reprimand  for  his  conduct  in  the  late  misunderstanding  at 
Walker,  Evans  & Cogswell  Co.” 

Whatever  may  have  been  thought  of  Mr.  Chichester’s 
course  in  this  matter,  he  afterwards  regained  his  former 
prestige,  and  became  president  of  the  Union. 

A Very  Interesting  Episode. 

The  last  quarter  of  the  year  1860  was  enlivened  by 
troubles  between  the  Union  and  the  Evening  News  and 
The  Courier,  over  the  employment  of  apprentices  and  the 
pay  of  the  deputy  foreman,  respectively.  Space  does  not 
permit  full  details,  but  the  remarks  of  Col.  John  Cuning- 
ham,  editor  of  the  Evening  News,  and  of  Mr.  John  Francis 
Britton,  president  of  the  Union,  and  his  brother,  R.  A. 
Britton,  as  reported  in  the  minutes,  are  so  characteristic 
of  the  three  men,  and  cast  such  a light  on  conditions  at 
that  time,  that  an  unusually  long  citation  is  warranted. 

Colonel  Cuningham  had  been  invited  to  appear  before 
the  Union  practically  to  show  cause  why  the  Evening 
News  should  not  “be  declared  a ‘Rat  Shop’.”  According 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


31 


to  the  minutes:  “The  president  (Mr.  John  F.  Britton) 

informed  Colonel  Cuningham  that  at  the  last  meeting  of 
this  Union  a resolution  had  been  adopted  not  allowing 
apprentices  to  work  in  competition  with  compositors  by 
the  piece,  or  on  time  ; that  the  system  was  alike  injurious 
to  the  employer  and  employed ; that  there  were  matters 
connected  with  printing  of  which  he  (Cuningham)  knew 
nothing,  and  that  the  journeymen  wished  to  have  the 
right  of  governing  the  internal  arrangements  of  a printing 
office ; that  all  the  other  offices  had  agreed  to  the  resolu- 
tion except  his,”  and  concluded  by  hoping  that  he  would 
“also  concede  this  request  to  the  employees.” 

Colonel  Cuningham’s  Speech  Hissed. 

“Colonel  Cuningham  said  he  had  been  waited  upon  a 
few  minutes  previous  to  attend  this  meeting ; he  did  not 
come  to  intrude,  and  hoped  he  would  not  be  considered  as 
doing  so.  It  was  not  his  desire  to  inquire  about  resolu- 
tions ; all  had  met  here  to  consult  each  other's  interests 
as  brothers  ; but  this  issue  the  Union  had  forced  upon 
themselves.  It  was  his  right  to  govern  the  internal  affairs 
of  his  office,  and  no  one  should  question  that  right;  the 
work  that  his  apprentices  had  done  had  been  refused  by 
journeymen,  and  he  had  paid  his  apprentices  full  price  for 
doing  it.  If  his  workmen  were  not  paid  sufficient  wages, 
they  should  have  said  so ; he  was  willing  to  concede  to  a 
just  demand.  Was  it  justice  to  act  as  they  had  done?  His 
business  had  been  neglected  by  this  action  ; there  was  a 
law  in  this  State  under  which  they  could  be  prosecuted 
for  conspiring  [hisses],  but  he  assured  the  Union  on  his 
honor  as  a man  and  a gentleman  that  he  would  do  nothing 
of  the  kind;  their  interests  were  at  stake  and  he  regarded 
them  too  much  to  sacrifice  them  for  this  fault.  He  con- 
sidered the  resolution  presented  to  him  as  dictation,  in 
whatever  language  they  might  couch  it;  it  was  an  infringe- 
ment on  the  rights  of  the  employers,  and  could  in  no  way 
benefit  the  employee.  Capital  has  the  means  in  its  power 
of  resisting  the  demands  of  the  workman,  but  when  these 
demands  were  just  they  should  be  conceded.” 


32 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


“Wherever  strikes  had  taken  place  they  resulted  in  ruin 
to  all  engaged  ; starvation  and  misery  must  and  would  be 
the  inevitable  result.  In  Lynn  and  Europe  the  strikers 
had  suffered  to  on  unheard-of  extent,  and  all  their  efforts 
had  scarcely  resulted  in  any  benefit  to  themselves. 

“A  body  of  men  so  intelligent  and  enlightened  as  those 
who  summoned  him  he  had  seldom  met.  They  had  formed 
themselves  into  an  association  from  which  they  excluded 
the  employer,  not  giving  him  an  opportunity  to  vindicate 
the  position  which  he  held,  but  compelling  him  to  submit 
to  whatever  they  chose  to  demand,  Why  should  the 
employer  (not)  be  allowed  to  join  the  society?  His  inter- 
ests were  theirs ; their  interests  were  his  ; this,  surely, 
was  not  the  manner  in  which  the  employers  should  have 
been  treated.  He  concluded  by  still  persisting  that  the 
resolution  was  dictating,  and  that  he  never  would  submit 
to  it ; he  would  resist  by  all  means  in  his  power,  and 
declared  ‘not  a cent  for  tribute,  millons  for  defence!’  He 
appealed  to  his  brethren  of  the  printing  pursuit  to  consider 
well  the  step  they  had  taken,  and  to  recede  from  the  posi- 
tion they  now  held  ; to  act  with  fairness  to  themselves 
and  employers,  and  leave  him  and  his  little  household  to 
pursue  the  even  tenor  of  their  way.” 

Mr.  Britton’s  Rejoinder. 

Mr.  R.  A.  Britton,  after  expressing  regret  that  he  had 
not  the  ability  of  the  gentleman  who  had  just  preceded 
him,  proceeded  at  some  length  to  review  Colonel  Cuning- 
ham’s  remarks.  He  showed  that  the  request  made  by  the 
Union,  of  the  employers,  was  one  of  justice,  and  could  not 
be  regarded  as  dictation.  “Itw'as  not  an  infringement  on 
the  rights  of  the  employers.”  He  referred  to  the  strike 
of  1852,  and  pointed  out  the  course  pursued  by  one  of  the 
present  proprietors  of  The  News  during  that  difficulty. 
He  concluded  by  urging  the  Union  to  stand  firm  in  the 
position  it  had  assumed,  believing  that  if  no  steps  backward 
were  ta.ken  our  point  would  be  attained. 

The  minutes  for  that  day  concluded  with  this  line : 
“After  some  further  discussion,  the  meeting,  on  motion, 
adjourned.” 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


33 


How  much,  if  any,  report  of  these  unusual  proceed- 
ings—a newspaper  editor  and  proprietor  addressing  Union 
printers  in  their  own  hall— ever  appeared  in  the  daily  press 
at  the  time  the  writer  does  not  know,  but,  if  it  was  his 
own,  Mr.  Jonas  Howe,  the  secretary  of  the  Union,  appa- 
rently made  an  excellent  “strike  report”  of  the  proceed- 
ings. Colonel  Cuningham  was  a bold,  aggressive  speaker, 
politician  and  editor,  and  a leading  authority  at  that  time 
in  the  Code  Duello.  His  claim  that  he  might,  if  he  would, 
prosecute  the  Union  for  “conspiracy,”  which  the  printers 
received  with  hisses,  reminds  one  of  certain  charges  of 
“government  by  injunction”  in  our  own  day;  but  even 
in  1860  the  claim  that  newspaper  proprietors  should  be 
allowed  to  join  the  printers’  unions  must  have  provoked 
a smile ; now-a-days  it  would  be  received  with  ‘ ‘loud 
Olympian  laughter.  ’ ’ 

The  Strike  of  1852. 

Mr.  Britton’s  reference  to  the  strike  of  1852  whets  the 
appetite  for  full  information  of  that,  perhaps,  earliest 
strike  by  Charleston  printers.  The  craft  throughout  the 
United  States,  notably  in  the  more  populous  (white) 
North,  had  begun  to  feel  its  strength,  had  become  “class 
conscious,”  as  Socialists  would  say;  the  first  convention 
of  the  “National  Typographical  Society”  had  met  in 
Washington  in  1836 ; this  organization,  after  many  ups 
and  downs,  had  evolved  by  1851  into  the  “National  Typo- 
graphical Union;”  the  year  before  (1850)  the  “National 
Convention  of  Journeymen  Printers  in  the  United  States” 
had  been  outspoken  against  the  apprentice  system,  the 
New  York  delegates  declaring,  “the  system  is  prolific  of 
‘rats’.  Let  apprentices  be  limited  and  journeymen  would 
be  in  demand.  The  price  of  labor  would  be  increased  and 
placed  in  a position  which  would  enable  it  to  compete  suc- 
cessfully with  the  power  of  capital.”  The  Journeymen’s 
Convention  of  1850  adopted  a resolution  “limiting  the 
number  of  apprentices,  as  a defence  against  what  had 
amounted  to  child  labor.”  Probably  the  newspapers  of 
the  time,  it  being  against  their  interests,  do  not  give  full, 


34 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


perhaps  any,  data  regarding  the  strike  of  1852  in  Charles- 
ton, and  there  are  no  minutes  of  that  day  extant.  It  is 
highly  probable  that  “the  strike  of  1852,”  like  the  diffi- 
culty between  the  union  printers  of  1860  and  Colonel 
Cuningham  and  The  News,  was  over  the  ever-recurring 
“apprentice  system.” 

The  minutes  of  several  successive  meetings  contain 
strong  arguments,  pro  and  con,  upon  the  apprentice  and 
deputy-foreman  matters,  and  it  appears  from  a careful 
reading  of  the  minute  book,  that  both  difficulties  were 
finally  compromised. 

Printers  Hesitate  to  Secede. 

The  next  burning  question  before  the  Union  was  no  less 
than  a proposal  to  secede  from  the  National  Typographical 
Union.  The  State  of  South  Carolina  had  seceded  from  the 
Federal  Union  on  December  20,  1860,  and  nine  days  later, 
at  its  first  regular  meeting  thereafter,  Mr.  Chichester 
moved  the  following  resolution  : 

“Whereas,  The  people  of  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  in 
convention  assembled,  having  solemnly  and  unanimously 
declared  themselves  free  and  independent,  and  having 
severed  the  ties  which  have  hitherto  united  them  with  the 
confederacy  known  as  the  United  States  of  America,  and 

“ Whereas , This  action  of  the  people  rendering  it  inex- 
pedient that  this  typographical  union  should  longer  retain 
its  connection  with  the  national  union  of  the  United 
States  ; therefore  be  it 

“ Resolved : That  from  and  after  the  1st  day  of  January, 
1861,  all  connection  heretofore  existing  between  the  Char- 
leston Union  No.  43,  and  the  national  union,  be  dissolved, 
and  all  acts  of  this  union  bearing  upon  said  connection  be, 
and  they  are  hereby,  revoked. 

“ Resolved : That  the  secretary  be  instructed  to  trans- 
mit immediately  to  the  proper  officers  of  the  national 
union  the  charter  of  this  union,  with  a copy  of  the  above 
resolutions  of  dissolution. 

“Resolved:  That  the  secretary  be  instructed  further,  to 
notify  all  subordinate  unions  in  this  State,  and  all  subor- 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


35 


dinate  unions  in  other  states  which  may  follow  South 
Carolina  in  her  present  patriotic  movement,  of  the  action 
of  this  union,  accompanied  by  a request  that  arrangements 
be  made  at  an  early  day  for  the  assembling  of  a conven- 
tion of  delegates  from  each  subordinate  union,  to  organ- 
ize a new  national  typographical  union  for  the  Southern 
Confederacy.” 

Knowing  the  wild  enthusiasm  for  secession,  it  is  hard  to 
understand  why  Mr.  Chichester’s  resolutions  were  lost,  as 
the  minutes  briefly  record.  Possibly  the  presence  of  some 
northern  printers  ; probably  the  idea  that  the  North  would 
make  overtures  and  that  the  states  would  soon  be  re-united. 
At  any  rate,  Jonas  Howe,  secretary,  lost  an  opportunity  to 
get  his  name  into  the  histories.  He  had  given  a full  report 
of  the  squabble  with  Col.  Cuningham  over  apprentices,  but 
not  a line  of  the  red-hot  discussion  that  must  have  followed 
Mr.  Chichester’s  drastic  resolution.  All  that  Howe  wrote 
thereon  was  the  following  significant  sentence  : “On  the 

announcement  to  the  meeting  that  the  motion  had  been 
lost,  J.  F.  Britton  vacated  his  chair  as  president  and  left 
the  room.”  Disappointment  or  disgust  probably  overcome 
that  ardent  South  Carolinian,  who  was  later  to  become  a 
gallant  soldier  of  the  Confederacy. 

As  will  be  seen,  the  Union  later  carried  out  the  policy 
outlined  by  Mr.  Chichester.  Whether  or  not  it  ever  for- 
mally adopted  the  resolutions  cannot  be  ascertained,  as  no 
meetings  are  recorded  in  the  minute  book,  except  one 
short  meeting  on  January  19th,  between  December  29th, 
1860,  and  May  25,  1861. 

Between  those  dates  Fort  Sumter  had  been  bombarded 
and  had  surrendered  (April  12-13),  and  there  had  been  a 
complete  political  revolution  in  South  Carolina ; men, 
women,  and  even  children,  had  been  excited  to  fever 
heat,  and  it  is  not  remarkable  that  the  printers,  some  of 
whom  had  doubtless  already  volunteered,  had  neither 
heart  nor  time  to  attend  meetings  of  the  Union. 


36 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


First  Union  in  The  Confederacy. 

At  the  head  of  the  minutes  of  June  29th,  1861,  appears 
the  legend  “Hall  of  Typographical  Union  No.  1.”  At 
this  meeting,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Ashby,  it  was  resolved 
that  “a  committee  be  appointed  to  nominate  delegates  to 
attend  a proposed  meeting  for  the  formation  of  a Southern 
National  Typographical  Union,  and  that  this  Union  request 
of  all  unions  in  the  Confederate  States  the  appointment  of 
two  delegates  to  meet  in  the  city  of  Charleston  on  the  25th 
of  October  next.” 

At  the  August  meeting,  the  proposed  meeting  for  organ- 
izing a southern  national  union  was  postponed  until  May 
1st,  1862,  “provided  the  state  of  the  country  would  admit 
of  its  being  held,”  and  the  various  unions  throughout  the 
South  were  notified  of  the  change  of  date. 

That  there  was  inter-communicaton  between  the  South- 
ern unions,  e.  g.,  from  New  Orleans,  Atlanta,  Raleigh, 
Columbia  and  elsewhere,  is  shown  by  a glance  over  the 
minutes,  but  though  the  matter  is  referred  to  more  than 
once,  it  is  clear  that  no  meeting  was  ever  held  in  Charles- 
ton to  federate  the  Southern  unions.  Possibly,  but  improb- 
ably, some  such  general  meeting  was  held  at  some  interior 
city  of  the  South,  where  the  original  suggestion  of  Mr. 
Chichester  was  put  into  effect. 

The  Old  Union’s  Last  Strike. 

A special  meeting  of  “Southern  Typographical  Union 
No.  1”  was  called  for  September  14,  1861.  In  the  absence 
of  President  R.  A.  Britton,  vice  president  Milton  Clark 
presided,  and  called  upon  Mr.  Maurice  Tracy,  foreman  of 
the  Charleston  Mercury,  to  state  the  object  of  the  meet- 
ing. Mr.  Tracy  thereupon  said  that  the  proprietors  of  the 
morning  newspapers  had  entered  into  an  agreement  to 
reduce  the  price  of  composition  in  their  offices  to  35  cents 
per  thousand  ems,  and  submitted  the  following  transcript : 

“We,  the  undersigned,  in  consideration  of  the  difficul- 
ties of  the  times  and  the  great  falling  off  in  advertising, 
the  most  lucrative  portion  of  our  business,  hereby  propose 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


37 


and  agree  to  reduce  the  price  of  composition  in  The 
Mercury  and  Courier  offices  from  38  cents  to  35  cents, 
and  return  to  the  old  rate  as  soon  as  the  war  is  over. 

“R.  B.  Rhett,  Jr.” 

‘‘A.  S.  WlLLINGTON  & CO.” 

There  was  considerable  discussion  as  to  whether  the 
paper  could  be  regarded  as  a proposition  to  the  Union  or  a 
mere  agreement  between  the  proprietors,  and  the  Union 
“Resolved  itself  into  committee  of  the  whole  on  the  state 
of  the  craft,”  with  L.  P.  Ashby  in  the  chair.  Mr.  R.  A. 
Britton  declared  that  “none  would  be  readier  than  he  to 
extend  to  the  proprietors  all  the  courtesies  and  concessions 
of  the  craft  when  appealed  to  and  solicited  directly.” 
This  view  seemed  to  meet  with  general  acquiesence  and  it 
appeared  for  a while  as  if  the  Union  was  standing  on  its 
dignity  and  only  demanded  proper  recognition  from  the 
proprietors,  but  such  was  not  the  case. 

It  is  impossible,  with  the  lapse  of  time,  to  arrive  at  the 
truth  in  the  matter.  There  can  be  no  question  that  the 
war  then  raging  had  cut  off  from  the  newspapers  much 
lucrative  business,  notably  the  advertising  coming  from 
north  of  the  Potomac,  but  whether  that  decrease  warranted 
a reduction  of  three  cents  per  thousand  ems  for  composi- 
tion so  early  in  the  struggle,  will  never  be  known. 

What  the  printers  thought  is  shown  by  the  adoption,  by 
a vote  of  24  to  3,  of  the  following  resolution  introduced  by 
Mr.  J.  F.  Britton: 

“ Resolved , That  this  Union  deems  it  inadvisable  to 
reduce  the  price  of  labor  and  that  it  cannot  agree  to  the 
proposed  reduction  by  the  proprietors.” 

To  give  an  idea  of  the  personnel  of  the  Union  in  the  fall 
of  1861,  the  yeas  and  nays  are  here  printed: 

Yeas  : A.  Eiland,  J.  F.  Hershman,  J.  Martin  Egan,  G.  W. 
Nickerson,  T.  C.  Neville,  Albert  Roberts,  Michael  Papey, 
Clarke,  J.  F.  White,  James  Ronan,  C.  F.  B.  Bremer,  V.  L. 
Clayton,  Adams,  H.  L.  Bohler,  G.  H.  Spencer,  L.  P.  Ashby, 
J.  F.  Britton,  R.  A.  Britton,  Miles  McSwiney,  Quinn,  H.  P. 
Cooke,  P.  Murray,  T.  Murray. 

Nays : Maurice  Tracy,  John  F.  White,  P.  Walsh. 


38 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


A committee  consisting  of  R.  A.  Britton,  T.  C.  Neville 
and  P.  Walsh  was  appointed  to  confer  with  the  proprietors 
and  report  the  action  of  the  Union. 

The  Strike  Well  On. 

There  were  six  more  meetings  of  the  Union  recorded  in 
this  book,  and  every  one  of  them  has  more  or  less  refer- 
ence to  the  strike  which  evidently  followed  the  announce- 
ment of  reduction  of  rates  by  the  morning  papers.  On 
September  22,  the  treasurer  is  instructed  ‘ ‘to  turn  over  all 
funds  in  his  hands  to  Mr.  T.  C.  Neville,  the  treasurer  of 
the  Printers’  Association,  for  the  purpose  of  starting  The 
Confederate,  a newspaper  intended  to  carry  out  the  objects 
contemplated  by  the  Union.”  It  would  be  interesting  to 
know  how  far  this  ambitious  scheme  of  the  Charleston 
printers  to  establish  a newspaper  of  their  own  in  war 
times  progressed. 

On  September  28,  the  special  committee  appointed  to 
confer  with  the  proprietors  of  The  Mercury  and  The 
Courier  reported  that  those  gentlemen  ‘‘had  treated  them 
in  the  most  contemptuous  manner,  and  not  even  vouchsafed 
a reply  to  a letter  couched  in  very  respectful  language.” 
On  October  11,  Mr.  Bassett  moved  that  the  Union  accept 
35  cents  per  thousand  ems  ‘‘during  the  present  war.” 
This  was  rejected  by  the  very  close  vote  of  10  to  9.  The 
ten  votes  were  in  the  affirmative,  but  a two-thirds  majority 
was  required. 

At  the  meeting  on  October  12,  a contribution  of  $5.50  is 
reported  from  printers  employed  by  Evans  & Cogswell 
‘‘towards  relieving  the  necessities  of  those  members  of  the 
Union  who  were  still  on  strike.” 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Walsh  it  was  “ Resolved , That  all  who 
worked  at  the  case  during  the  strike  without  distinction 
* * * be  published  as  ‘rats’.” 

Mr.  Neville  reported  that  the  New  Orleans  Union  had 
appropriated  $50  for  the  benefit  of  this  Union,  and  the  sec- 
retary was  instructed  to  inform  the  Nashville  and  Mobile 
Unions  of  our  affairs  and  ask  their  aid. 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


39 


On  October  26,  the  president  reported  that  the  chairman 
of  the  finance  committee,  a very  important  official  at  that 
time,  had  been  expelled  for  ratting.  Mr.  J.  F.  Britton 
moved  that  the  secretary  forward  to  the  various  unions  in 
the  Confederate  States  a printed  list  of  the  members  in 
good  standing;  of  those  suspended  and  those  expelled, 
stating  the  causes  of  expulsion.  This  was  carried  and 
immediately  thereafter,  on  motion,  Oran  Bassett,  J.  Ronan 
J.  F.  Quinn,  M.  Davis,  H.  T.  Ryan  and  Criminger  were 
expelled  for  ratting. 

Indicative  of  the  convictions  of  the  Charleston  printers 
regarding  Secession,  is  an  announcement  in  The  Southern 
Episcopalian,  a magazine  which  reduced  its  pages  from 
56  to  16,  in  December,  1861.  Any  idea  of  “Labor  Union,  ” 
or  strike,  is,  apparently,  forgotten.  The  editor  says: 
“The  invader  is  upon  our  soil  and  all  the  energies  of  our 
“people  are  put  forth  to  meet  him.  The  ordinary  business 
“of  the  city  is,  in  great  measure,  suspended,  and  every 
“man  who  is  able  to  bear  arms  goes  forth  to  defend  our 
“homes  from  an  enemy  who  has  set  at  defiance  the  rules 
“of  civilized  warfare  and  seeks  to  carry  ruin  and  devasta- 
tion in  his  train.  * * * The  call  upon  our  printers  to 

“take  the  field,  and  the  failure  of  some  of  our  subscribers 
“to  pay  their  dues,  with  the  scarceness  of  paper  and  the 
“general  stagnation  of  business,  makes  it  necessary  that 
“we  should  abridge  our  periodical  to  its  present  very 
“narrow  dimensions.” 

The  strike  seems  to  have  weakened,  as  no  meeting  is 
recorded  until  December  21st,  when  both  Vice  President 
Milton  Clark  and  Secretary  Bremer  were  reported  for 
“ratting,”  and  on  motion,  expelled. 

Union’s  Last  Meeting  in  War  Time. 

For  several  reasons  the  minutes  of  the  last  meeting  of 
the  Union,  of  which  there  is  any  record,  are  of  peculiar 
interest,  and  are,  therefore,  published  in  full: 


40 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


“ Southern  Typographical  Union  No.  1. 

“ Charleston , S.  C.,  January  16,  1861. 

“An  extra  meeting  of  the  Union  was  held  this  evening, 
the  President,  R.  A.  Britton,  in  the  chair. 

“Mr.  Crawford  was  reported  for  “ratting,”  and  on 
motion,  expelled. 

“Mr.  G.  A.  Moore,  vice  president,  moved  that  the  con- 
stitution be  amended  so  as  to  make  the  price  of  composi- 
tion on  morning  papers  35  cents  per  thousand  ems.  Motion 
seconded  by  Mr.  Clayton. 

“Mr.  John  F.  Britton  offered  the  following  as  a substi- 
tute : ‘That  the  Union  be  dissolved  ; that  the  money  for- 

warded by  the  New  Orleans  Typographical  Union  be 
transmitted  to  said  Union,  accompanied  by  the  thanks  of 
this  body,  and  that  each  of  the  members  of  this  Union  be 
furnished  with  a copy  for  future  use.  ’ 

“The  ayes  and  nays  were  ordered  on  the  substitute, 
and  are  as  follows  : 

“Ayes:  Roberts,  Lyons,  Hamlin— 3. 

“Nays  : J.  F.  Britton,  Gilbert  McIntosh,  Moore,  Clayton, 
R.  A.  Britton— 6. 

“So  the  substitute  was  lost. 

“The  original  motion  coming  up,  the  ayes  and  nays 
were  ordered,  and  are  as  follows : 

“Ayes:  J.  F.  Britton,  Hamlin,  McIntosh,  Roberts— 4. 

“Nays:  R.  A.  Britton,  Clayton,  Gilbert,  Lyons,  Moose— 5. 

“So  the  original  motion  was  lost. 

“Mr.  Lyons  moved  ‘that  the  constitution  be  suspended 
during  the  present  war,’  and,  on  taking  the  vote,  it  was 
found  to  be  unanimously  in  the  affirmative. 

“On  motion  of  Mr.  Roberts,  all  arrearages  up  to  the 
last  regular  meeting,  were  suspended. 

“On  motion  (no  further  business  appearing),  the  Union 
adjourned  subject  to  the  call  of  the  president. 

“V.  L.  A.  Clayton,  Secretary.” 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  Union  which  had,  during  the 
year  1859-60,  numbered  112,  owing  to  the  strike  and  to  the 
State’s  call  to  arms,  had  dwindled  to  nine  members.  Mr. 
R.  A.  Britton  and  four  others  of  “the  old  guard”  opposed 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


41 


to  the  last  any  proposition  to  lower  the  price  of  composi- 
tion, and  preferred  to  suspend  the  operation  of  the  Union 
until  the  war  was  over. 

The  proposition  of  the  nine  Charleston  printers  “that 
the  constitution  be  suspended  during  the  war”  was  not 
original  with  them.  Although  President  Lincoln  and  his 
advisers  in  the  cabinet  and  congress  never  passed  any 
such  formal  resolution,  they  too,  and  their  successors, 
suspended  the  constitution  of  a greater  Union  during  the 
war  and  for  many  years  thereafter. 

Distinguished  Printers  of  the  ’60s— And  After. 

On  the  roll  of  the  Charleston  Typographical  Union  are 
doubtless  many  soldiers  of  the  Confederacy.  The  writer 
recalls  several  who  served  gallantly — notably  Capt.  C.  E. 
Chichester,  the  Messrs.  Britton,  C.  A.  D.  Church,  of  the 
LaFayette  Artillery,  its  color  bearer,  and  John  A.  Prince. 
Mr.  Prince  is,  in  all  probability,  the  last  Confederate 
veteran  now  a compositor  in  the  newspaper  press  of 
Charleston.  He  is  as  modest  as  he  was  brave,  and  a brief 
sketch  of  his  services  will  be  of  interest  to  his  friends, 
however  surprised  he  may  be  to  see  it  in  print.  When  the 
war  began  he  was  an  apprentice,  aged  17  years,  on  the 
Charleston  Evening  News,  and  a member  of  the  Beaure- 
gard Light  Infantry.  After  the  reorganization  that  com- 
pany was  finally  merged  into  Company  E,  25th  Regiment, 
Hagood’s  Brigade.  Mr.  Prince  was  wounded  while  on 
duty  in  Fort  Sumter,  and  again  wounded  at  Drewry’s 
Bluff,  Virginia,  May  16,  1864.  He  was  taken  prisoner  at 
the  fall  of  Fort  Fisher,  and  so  remained  until  the  end  of 
the  war.  In  Hagood’s  “Memoirs  of  the  War  of  Seces- 
sion,” Mr.  Prince’s  name  appears  on  the  Regimental  Roll 
as  Second  Lientenant,  his  commission  dating  from  Novem- 
ber 22,  1864,  “the  brave  days  when  he  was  twenty-one.” 

Although  the  writer  never  learned  to  “stick  type,”  for 
nearly  eighteen  of  the  happiest  years  of  his  life  he  was  in 
daily — or  rather  nightly — association  with  the  venerable 
Oran  Bassett,  T.  C.  Neville,  James  Ronan  and  the  Messrs. 
Britton.  South  Carolina  had  no  more  patriotic  citizens, 


42  LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS  IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 

though  none  of  them  rose  so  high  in  civic  life  as  did  two  of 
their  fellows,  Patrick  Walsh,  editor  and  proprietor  of  The 
Augusta  Chronicle,  and  sometime  United  States  Senator 
from  Georgia,  and  Col.  J.  H.  Estill,  proprietor  of  The 
Savannah  Morning  News,  a leading  capitalist  of  that  city, 
and  prominent  candidate  for  Governor  of  Georgia. 

There  can  be  found  in  one  of  the  collections  of  war 
poetry  of  the  South,  some  graceful  verses  by  another  ante- 
bellum Charleston  printer,  Capt.  Edgar  G.  Murden,  whose 
name  frequently  appears  in  the  minute  book. 

Two  other  names  on  the  old  rolls  attract  attention — V. 
Stanton  and  Miles  McSweeney — one  of  them  the  father  of 
Miles  B.  McSweeney,  Governor  of  South  Carolina,  1899- 
1903;  and  the  other  the  father  of  Frank  L.  Stanton,  now 
of  Georgia,  the  gifted  poet  and  journalist,  once  a printer- 
boy  on  the  Charleston  newspaper  press,  whose  first  well- 
remembered  “swallow  flights  of  song”  appeared  in  the 
Journal  of  Commerce. 

This  collection  of  notes  on  early  labor  organizations  in 
South  Carolina,  through  the  chance  possession  of  the 
Union's  minute  book  covering  the  years  1859-1862,  has 
caused,  perhaps,  too  much  space  to  be  devoted  to  that 
later  and  most  eventful  period  in  our  State’s  history. 

According  to  The  Charleston  Review,  the  official  organ 
of  Central  Labor  Union  of  Charleston,  the  date  of  the 
present  charter  is  April,  1886,  and  it  appears  that  the 
national  organization  allowed  the  Charleston  Typograph- 
ical Union,  in  spite  of  its  secession  in  1861,  to  resume  its 
former  number,  “43.” 

There  has  always  been  a close  bond  among  “the  craft” 
the  world  over,  and  the  printers  of  South  Carolina,  who 
organized  the  first  labor  union  in  the  State,  were  not  slow 
in  getting  back  to  the  Restored  Union — political  and  typo- 
graphical— a consummation  which  certainly  two  of  the 
great  branches  of  the  Christian  church  have  not  as  yet 
effected. 


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THE  CHARLESTON  MECHANIC  SOCIETY. 


Reference  has  been  made  in  the  foregoing  paper  to  the 
‘ ‘Charleston  Mechanic  Society,  ’ ’ The  last  available  printed 
record  of  this  ancient  and  honorable  organization — apart 
from  notices  and  advertisements  in  the  newspapers — is  a 
now  rare  pamphlet  of  forty-four  pages  entitled:  “The  Con- 
stitution of  the  Charleston  Mechanic  Society,  instituted  at 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  1794.” 


[Here  appears  an  engraving  of  the  seal  of  the  society, 
with  an  upraised  muscular  arm  wielding  a hammer,  with 
the  legend,  in  the  exergue,  “Industry  produceth  wealth, 
1794.”] 

“Revised,  and  amended  and  ratified,  June  7th,  1858. 
Charleston,  S.  C.  James  & Williams,  Printers,  16  State 
Street,  1858.” 

The  preamble  sets  forth  the  purpose  and  aim  of  the 
society,  and  reads  as  follows: 

“We,  mechanics,  manufacturers,  and  handicraftsmen  of 
“the  City  of  Charleston,  actuated  by  principles  of  philan- 
“throphy,  anxious  to  promote  the  interests  of  the  me- 
chanic, and  desirous  that  brotherly  union  may  generally 


44 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


“prevail,  being  persuaded  that  we  cannot  better  facilitate 
“so  desirable  an  object  than  by  associating  for  that  pur- 
“pose;  and,  as  the  raising  of  a fund  for  the  relief  of  such 
“of  us  as  may,  by  misfortune,  be  reduced  to  indigence,  is 
“essential  thereto,  conceiving  the  following  rules  to  be 
“best  calculated  for  those  ministrations,  we  do  hereby 
“subscribe  to  them  as  the  Constitution  and  Rules  for  a 
“Society.” 

The  preamble  to  the  first  act  of  incorporation,  dated 
December  21,  1798,  reads: 

“Whereas,  John  Casper  Folker,  president;  Peter  Smith, 
“vice  president;  David  Haig,  senior  warden;  John  John- 
“son,  junior  warden  of  the  same,  have  petitioned  the  Leg- 
islature to  incorporate  the  said  society,  stating  that  from 
“the  nature  of  their  employment,  and  the  smallness  of 
‘ ‘their  capital,  they  are  more  exposed  than  any  other  class 
“of  citizens  to  the  inconveniences  and  distresses  arising 
“from  sickness,  and  such  other  unavoidable  accidents  as 
“may  deprive  themselves  and  families  of  the  benefit  of 
“their  exertions;  and  that  they  have  united  into  a society 
“for  the  purpose  of  raising  a fund,  by  means  of  which 
“such  of  them  as  are  successful  in  the  world,  will  be 
“enabled,  without  inconvenience,  to  afford  relief  to  the 
“unfortunate.”  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

As  the  preambles  to  the  charter  and  constitution  would 
indicate,  there  is  nothing  in  either  suggesting  anything 
approximating  a trade  union,  nor  any  reference  to  wages; 
it  is  solely  a benevolent  and  social  organization,  and  the 
constitution  follows  the  conventional  type  of  other  societies 
of  the  kind  of  that  day. 

Income  and  Outgo. 

The  fee  for  admission,  except  for  the  sons  of  members, 
is  $10,  and  the  annual  dues  are  $8  each  for  all  members. 
Whenever  the  treasurer  shall  report  a balance  of  $150  in 
his  hands,  after  payment  of  all  expenses,  that  sum,  or 
more,  shall  be  converted  into  the  permanent  fund  of  the 
society  and  shall  be  invested  in  certain  specified  city  and 
State  securities.  The  interest  or  income  only,  accruing 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


45 


from  the  invested  funds,  could  be  appropriated  to  the 
relief  of  distressed  members,  or  for  the  relief  of  the 
widow  or  children  of  deceased  members;  “ Provided , That 
the  ages  of  the  children  do  not  exceed  of  the  males  four- 
teen years,  and  females  twelve  years;  at  which  age  the 
bounty  of  the  society  towards  them  shall  be  discontinued.” 
This  discrimination  against  “females  twelve  years”  is 
hard  to  understand.  One  would  suppose  they  would  be  in 
greater  need  than  lads  of  fourteen  years.  In  case  of  the 
death  of  any  member  in  indigence  the  president  is  author- 
ized to  pay  as  much  as  fifty  dollars  for  the  funeral 
expenses.  The  Committee  on  Charity,  “when  the  urgent 
necessity  of  the  case  shall  require  immediate  relief,”  may 
draw  on  the  treasurer  for  any  sum  “not  exceeding  $20.” 

Rule  XII  provided  for  the  annual  dinner  of  the  society. 
Unfortunately  it  does  not  prescribe  any  details  of  the 
menu;  but  that  it  was  ‘toothsome’  cannot  be  questioned, 
for  there  is  a provision  that  “the  entire  expenses,  to  be 
paid  out  of  the  funds  of  the  society,  shall  not  exceed  five 
dollars  per  head  for  those  dining.”  The  days  of  “four 
bottle  men”  were  happily  over,  and  we  cannot  believe 
that  these  “mechanics”  emulated  their  predecessors  of 
1768 — of  Charleston  “Liberty  Tree”  fame — in  drinking 
forty-nine  toasts  in  one  evening;  but  it  is  exceedingly 
probable  that  they  rivalled  the  Typographical  Union  of 
1860,  who  laid  on  the  table  the  proposition  of  Mr.  W.  B. 
Thompson  to  furnish  only  “two  bowls  of  punch  and  one 
bowl  of  sherry  cobbler”  for  each  member. 

Here  is  a notice  of  one  of  the  anniversary  meetings 
taken,  at  random,  from  The  City  Gazette  of  January  28, 
1826: 

“charleston  mechanic  society. 

“The  anniversary  meeting  of  this  Society  will  be  held 
on  Monday,  6th  February  next,  at  12  o’clock,  at  Seyle’s 
Room,  on  King  Street.  The  members  are  requested  to  be 
punctual  in  their  attendance,  to  transact  the  usual  business 
of  the  Society  before  dinner,  which  will  be  served  up  at  3 
o’clock. 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


“Those  members  who  intend  not  to  dine  are  requested 
to  give  notice  of  such  intention  on  or  before  Tuesday,  31st 
inst.  By  order, 

“January  24.”  “F.  A.  Beckman,  Secretary.” 

In  June,  1858,  the  society  had  eighty-one  members,  and 
the  report  of  Treasurer  Jacob  F.  Schirmer  showed  stocks 
and  bonds  to  the  value  of  $21,051.86,  with  a total  annual 
income  of  $1,312.45.  So  far  as  we  know  the  society  pub- 
lished no  later  pamphlet  giving  lists  of  members,  assets, 
etc.  The  Charleston  Courier  of  February  3,  1880,  reports 
the  eighty-sixth  annual  meeting,  held  at  Masonic  Hall  the 
day  before,  and  reports  the  election  of  the  following  offi- 
cers: David  A.  Walker,  president;  J.  W.  Sawner,  vice 
president;  C.  C.  Trumbo,  senior  warden;  P.  P.  Toale, 
junior  warden;  William  Kirkwood,  treasurer;  Thomas  H. 
Dillingham,  secretary;  John  H.  Seyle  and  M.  W.  Cross, 
stewards. 

The  Charleston  City  Directory  for  1882,  and  1883,  gives 
the  same  list  of  officers  as  in  1880;  but  no  notice  of  the 
society  or  its  meetings,  so  far  as  the  writer  knows,  appears 
in  the  Charleston  press  after  February,  1880.  During  the 
presidency  of  Mr.  David  A.  Walker  the  society  dissolved, 
and  what  was  left  of  the  funds,  sadly  depleted  by  the  War 
of  Secession,  is  said  to  have  been  turned  over  to  some 
charitable  organization. 

It  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  this  paper  to 
present  a complete  history  of  the  Charleston  Mechanic 
Society;  but  it  may  be  questioned  whether  any  other 
organization  of  mechanics  in  the  South — perhaps  in  the 
United  States — organized  so  early  as  1794,  lasted  eighty- 
six  years.  The  subject  is  well  worth  a special  monograph, 
and  the  student  who  undertakes  the  task  will  find  inter- 
esting data  by  referring  to  the  Charleston  Courier  of  the 
following  dates:  February  7,  1859;  February  6,  1860;  and 
February  6,  1861. 

Then,  owing  to  the  siege  of  Charleston  by  the  Federal 
army  and  navy,  the  meetings  ceased;  the  mechanics  were 
busy  building  gunboats  and  making  cannon  and  small 
arms,  under  Eason  and  Henerey  and  Dotterer  and  others; 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


47 


but  on  February  6,  1865,  thirteen  days  before  the  evacua- 
tion of  the  city,  they  met  for  the  last  time  under  “the 
falling  flag,”  at  the  residence  of  Mr.  Edward  Fogartie,  on 
Calhoun  Street  (outside  the  range  of  Gillmore’s  guns),  and 
The  Courier  of  February  9th  gives  a good  report  of  the 
meeting  and  of  the  election  of  officers. 

On  February  5,  1867,  the  society  celebrated  its  seventy- 
third  anniversary— “with  all  the  honors”— by  a business 
meeting  in  the  morning  and  a banquet  in  the  evening. 
On  February  4,  1868,  the  anniversary  meeting  was  held, 
but  apparently  no  officers  were  elected;  and  then  there  is 
another  period  of  suspended  animation,  until  February  7, 
1870.  The  mechanics,  apparently,  did  not  meet  again 
until  February,  1874;  and  then  another  “break”  until  Feb- 
ruary 4,  1878.  This  eighty-fourth  anniversary— judging 
by  the  newspaper  report— was  a notable  event;  it  was  the 
grand  finale  of  the  ancient  and  honorable  organization,  for 
the  meeting  on  February  2,  1880,  was  apparently  formal, 
and  the  paper  records  nothing  save  the  election  of  officers. 

If  the  minute  books  of  this  society  are  still  extant,  they 
should  not  be  kept  in  private  hands;  they  constitute  a 
unique  record  of  economic  conditions  under  the  slavery 
regime,  and  should  be  deposited  for  safe  keeping,  or  pre- 
sented to  the  Historical  Society,  or  the  Charleston  Library, 
or  the  library  of  the  College  of  Charleston,  or  to  the  State 
Historical  Commission,  in  Columbia. 

Some  Representative  Mechanics. 

To  the  student  of  Sociology,  Eugenics,  or  local  history, 
the  value  of  this  pamphlet  is  not  so  much  the  three  acts 
of  incorporation,  or  the  constitution  and  rules,  or  the 
“schedule  of  stocks,”  etc.;  but  the  twenty  closely  printed 
pages  of  the  appendix,  containing  “a  list  of  the  present 
and  deceased  officers  and  members  of  the  Mechanic 
Society,”  from  1794  to  1858. 

A cursory  examination  of  the  list,  with  occasional  com- 
ment, may  be  of  interest: 

Samuel  Axson  (sometimes  spelled  “Axon”),  who  joined 
in  1812,  is  near  kin  (probably  brother),  of  Judge  Axson, 


48 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


and  is  of  the  family  of  that  name  in  Georgia,  one  of  whose 
daughters  is  the  wife  of  Woodrow  Wilson,  President  of  the 
United  States. 

Thomas  Bennett,  who  joined  in  1802;  in  1817,  as  Speaker 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  signed  the  third  act  of 
incorporation,  and  afterward  became  Governor  of  South 
Carolina. 

John  G.  Chalk,  who  joined  in  1856,  died  within  the  last 
decade,  and  was  one  of  the  few  survivors  of  the  462  mem- 
bers whose  names  were  published  in  1858. 

Thomas  D.  Dotterer,  the  eminent  iron  founder  and  con- 
tractor, joined  in  1854,  and  is  affectionately  remembered 
by  hundreds  of  Charlestonians  today. 

James  M.  Eason,  (1854),  was  one  of  the  most  notable 
iron  founders  of  the  South;  the  constructor  of  the  iron-clad 
gunboat  “Chicora”;  the  “Charleston”,  a larger  and  more 
powerful  vessel,  and  other  craft. 

Charles  W.  Graves  (1848),  was  a leading  contractor  and 
builder,  whose  grandson  was  a member  of  the  United 
States  Congress. 

Henry  Horlbeck  was  one  of  a family  of  house  builders, 
much  of  whose  work  has  withstood  cyclone,  bombardment 
and  earthquake.  His  father  had  built  what  is  known  as 
the  “old  postoffice,”  and  the  Laurens  house,  on  East  Bay, 
before  the  Revolution.  They  were  built  to  last,  and  are 
still  there.  Henry  Horlbeck,  succeeding  David  Haig,  was 
elected  president  in  1808,  and  served  four  terms. 

Basil  Lanneau,  (1794),  of  French-Acadian  extraction; 
the  ancestor  of  the  well-known  family  of  that  name  which 
has  furnished  so  many  Presbyterian  clergymen  and  emi- 
nent citizens.  He  was  the  grandfather  of  Basil  Lanneau 
Gildersleeve,  who  was  born  in  Charleston,  passed  his  boy- 
hood there,  is  now  professor  at  Johns  Hopkins  Uuiversity, 
and,  by  general  consent,  is  acknowledged  the  leading 
Greek  scholar  in  the  United  States.  Clarum  et  venerabile 
nomen! 

Fleetwood  Lanneau,  (1852),  was  a leading  Charlestonian 
of  ante-bellum  days;  who  delivered  a valuable  historical 
address  at  the  semi-centennial  of  the  Second  (Flinn’s)  Pres- 
byterian Church,  and  was  president  of  the  society  in  1858. 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


49 


Robert  Lebby,  (1794) , was  the  first  of  four  of  the  name 
to  join  the  society.  He  was  the  ancestor  of  two  eminent 
physicians  of  the  same  name,  father  and  son,  both  distin- 
guished surgeons  in  the  Confederate  army,  still  well 
remembered  and  honored  in  Charleston  and  tidewater 
South  Carolina. 

Benjamin  Lucas,  (1851),  was  a well-known  contractor 
and  builder,  whose  work  and  character  were  held  in  high 
repute. 

William  Laidler,  (1853),  was  for  many  years  business 
manager  of  The  Charleston  Courier. 

William  Mills,  (1794),  a tailor  by  trade,  was  father  of 
Robert  Mills,  author,  architect  and  engineer  of  distinction. 
Mr.  Mills  declared  that  he  was  “the  first  native  American 
that  entered  on  the  study  of  architecture  and  engineering 
in  the  United  States.”  He  designed  the  Washington 
Monument  and  the  Treasury  buildings  at  the  national 
capital,  and  near  Philadelphia  he  designed  and  constructed 
a bridge  with  the,  then,  greatest  span  of  arch  in  the  world. 
His  “Statistics  of  South  Carolina”  was  an  invaluable  pub- 
lication for  that  time  (1826),  and  was  meant  to  serve  as 
an  appendix  to  the  monumental  “Mills’s  Atlas  of  South 
Carolina.”  The  name  of  Mills  has  died  out  in  the  male 
line,  but  the  brilliant  family  of  Dimitry,  of  New  Orleans, 
is  descended  from  the  eminent  South  Carolina  architect. 

Jacob  F.  Mintzing,  (1816),  was,  in  1840-41,  mayor  of 
Charleston. 

J.  J.  McCarter,  a well-known  publisher  and  bookseller. 

Paul  Pritchard,  (1801),  a planter  and  ship  carpenter  on 
Daniel’s  Island,  where  he  had  extensive  shipyards,  one  of 
the  ancestors  of  two  of  the  proudest  families  in  South 
Carolina. 

Nicholas  Poulnot,  (1811),  was  the  first  of  that  name  to 
join  the  society.  His  grandson  is  now  postmaster  of 
Charleston. 

William  Rouse,  (1794),  an  officer  in  the  Revolution,  and 
sometime  Intendant  of  Charleston. 

Jacob  Sass,  (1794),  stood  high  in  the  councils  of  the 
Lutheran  Church,  and  was  the  warm  friend  of  the  great 
naturalist  and  divine,  John  Bachman. 


50 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


Jacob,  (1795),  and  Lewis  Strobel,  (1809),  are  of  the 
well-known  family  which  has  furnished  ministers  to  the 
Lutheran  Church;  the  historian  of  the  Georgia  Salzbur- 
gers, and  in  a later  generation,  the  distinguished  civilian, 
Edward  H.  Strobel,  of  Chester,  S.  C.,  whose  death,  while 
diplomatic  advisor  to  the  King  of  Siam,  several  years  ago, 
was  so  generally  deplored  on  two  continents. 

William  Simms,  (1812),  was  that  storekeeper  on  King 
street,  whose  son,  William  Gilmore  Simms,  was  to  become 
South  Carolina’s  greatest  novelist  and  historian;  indeed, 
Fenimore  Cooper  and  Charles  Brockden  Brown  are  prob- 
ably the  only  Americans  of  that  day  whose  romances  can 
be  compared  with  those  of  Simms. 

John  E.  Schirmer,  (1805),  was  the  first,  of  three  of  the 
name,  to  join  the  society.  This  well-known  family  was 
afterward  to  furnish  several  leading  wholesale  merchants 
on  “the  Bay”. 

Edward  Sebring,  (1845),  later  in  life  was  a leading  citi- 
zen and  banker  on  Broad  street. 

Whitefoord  Smith,  Jr.,  (1805),  bears  the  same  name  and 
was  the  father  of  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  eloquent 
divines  of  the  Methodist  Church;  the  son  was  a graduate 
of  South  Carolina  College  in  1830. 

John  H.  Steinmeyer,  (1846),  like  his  gallant  son  and 
successor,  was  for  many  years  proprietor  of  one  of  the 
largest  lumber  plants  in  this  State, 

Anthony  Toomer,  president  of  the  society  in  1794, 
belonged  to  a family  distinguished  in  the  social  and  his- 
torical annals  of  the  “low  country”  of  South  Carolina. 

Stephen  Thomas,  (1794),  was  that  belated  Huguenot 
who  has  numerous  descendants  in  this  and  other  Southern 
States,  and  whose  unusually  large  tombstone,  with  a nota- 
ble epitaph,  may  be  seen  in  the  southeastern  corner  of  the 
French  Protestant  churchyard  in  Charleston. 

Theodore  Trezevant,  (1795),  “did  most  of  the  tailoring 
for  the  revolutionary  government  of  South  Carolina.  Sub- 
sequent to  the  Revolution  he  was  for  several  years  presi- 
dent of  the  Master  Tailors’  Society  in  Charleston,”  all  of 
which,  with  many  interesting  details,  may  be  found  in 
Mr.  A.  S.  Salley’s  genealogical  sketch  of  the  Trezevant 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


51 


family.  This  master  tailor  was  the  father  of  Judge  Lewis 
Trezevant,  and  one  of  his  sons,  Peter,  through  his  wife 
(Farquahar),  became  heir  to  an  enormous  estate  in  Eng- 
land. He  moved  from  Stoll’s  alley,  Charleston,  to  an 
elegant  home  in  London,  where  he  took  great  pleasure, 
in  after  years,  in  entertaining  any  old  friends  from 
Carolina. 

W.  H.  Timrod,  (1813),  the  book-binder  poet;  who  pub- 
lished only  one  little  volume  of  verse,  but  whose  brilliant 
son,  Henry  Timrod,  was  considered  by  Richard  Henry 
Stoddard  “the  best  of  Southern  poets”,  and  who  has  given 
undying  fame  to  his  native  city  and  State. 

Thomas  A.  Vardell,  (1825),  member  of  a family  notable 
in  the  Presbyterian  Church  and  pulpit,  and,  in  our  own 
day,  as  educators. 

Daniel  G.  Wayne,  (1850),  the  well-known  contractor  and 
builder,  who  long  survived  the  War  of  Secession,  and 
whose  son,  D.  G.  Wayne,  is  probably  the  ablest  ornitholo- 
gist in  the  South. 

David  Rogerson  Williams,  (1802),  perhaps  the  most  dis- 
tinguished of  these  “mechanics”  in  the  political  and  eco- 
nomic life  of  the  State  and  Union.  He  was  a newspaper 
proprietor,  possibly  a printer,  in  Charleston,  afterward  a 
Brigadier  General  in  the  regular  army,  who  resigned  his 
commission  to  become  a member  of  Congress  in  1811-12, 
where  he  was  an  ardent  follower  of  the  school  of  Jeffer- 
son. In  1811  he  was  elected  Governor  of  South  Carolina. 
He  constructed  the  first  cotton  mill  in  the  Pee  Dee  section 
of  this  State,  was  the  first  planter  thereabout  to  protect 
his  fields  from  overflow  by  river  freshets,  and  was  proba- 
bly the  first  planter  to  crush  cotton  seed  for  the  manufac- 
ture of  oil — altogether,  in  public  and  private  life,  a man 
far  ahead  of  his  time.  The  first  biography  of  Governor 
Williams,  the  work  of  Professor  H.  T.  Cooke,  of  Furman 
University,  is  now  nearing  completion,  and  will  fitly  com- 
memorate his  life  and  services. 

Aaron  Smith  Willington,  (1820),  was  among  the  living 
members  enrolled  in  1858.  He  became  head  of  the  firm  of 
A.  S.  Willington  & Co.,  which  owned  and  conducted  The 


52 


LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS 


Charleston  Courier  for  over  fifty  years.  He  came  to 
Charleston  in  1802,  a journeyman  printer,  from  Weyland, 
Massachusetts. 

Peter  Wyatt,  (1794),  one  of  three  of  the  name,  members 
of  the  society.  In  the  Charleston  directory  for  1809  is  the 
item:  “Wyatt,  Peter;  lumber  merchant;  mills,  Lynch 
street.”  This  was  probably  the  builder  and  owner  of  the 
windmill  at  the  foot  of  Beaufain  street,  which  was  once 
the  wonder  of  the  town. 

Seth  Yates,  (1799),  a ship  carpenter,  several  of  whose 
family,  including  the  writer’s  great  grandfather,  followed 
the  same  trade. 


The  foregoing  notes  on  prominent  Charleston  mechanics, 
made  largely  from  memory,  might  be  indefinitely  extended; 
they  are  given  to  furnish  some  idea  of  the  personnel  of 
the  society,  perhaps  the  oldest  and  longest  lived  organiza- 
tion of  its  kind  in  the  Southern  States.  There  are  other 
names  in  the  printed  roll  which  challenge  attention, 
because  of  their  position  in  the  economic  and  social  life  of 
Charleston.  Here  are  some  of  them:  Ralph  Atmar,  (1794) ; 
Samuel  Bonsall,  (1794) ; William  Bell,  (1814) ; E.  Bull, 
(1846) ; Louis  J.  Barbot,  (1852) ; A.  0.  Barbot,  (1857) ; 
Thomas  Carew,  (1800) ; John  Caldwell,  (1801) ; Edward 
Carew,  (1813) ; Samuel  Corrie,  (1813) ; George  Creitzberg, 
(1824) ; Henry  B.  Cross,  (1853) ; Benjamin  DuPre,  (1794) ; 
C.  R.  Elliott,  (1802) ; Albert  Elfe,  (1831) ; Thomas  D.  Fell, 
(1816);  Alex.  Fairchild,  (1819);  George  Gibbs,  (1795); 
W.  Gregg,  (1844);  David  Haig,  (1794);  Richard  Howard, 
(1801);  John  T.  Henerey,  (1854);  William,  and  John  John- 
son, Jr.,  (1784);  William  Kirkwood,  (1833);  A.  V.  Kana- 
peaux,  (1856) ; David  Lopez,  (1836) ; Julius  R.  Lachicotte, 
(1853);  John  H.  Magart,  (1805);  Robert  Munro,  (1813); 
J.  Ward  Motte,  (1847) ; Thomas  M.  Matthewes,  (1853) ; 
Benjamin  Phillips,  (1814);  A.  H.  Petsch,  (1854);  Samuel 
Rivers,  (1794) ; F.  Richards,  (1843) ; Charles  Steedman, 
(1794) ; John  Strohecker,  (1801) ; Jeremiah  Shrewsbury, 
(1806);  Robert  Stewart,  (1836);  F.  P.  Seignious,  (1851); 
T.  Ogier  Smith,  (1854);  Henry  Tovey,  (1802);  Thomas  Ten- 


IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 


53 


nent,  (1816);  Cornelius  Vanderhorst,  (1804);  Joseph  Whil- 
den,  (1802);  E.  B.  White,  (1842);  W.  E.  Wightman,  (1843); 
Walter  H.  Witsell,  (1854). 

In  the  published  roll  from  1794,  and  in  the  preceding 
lists,  with  and  without  comment,  are  men  who  were 
bakers,  blacksmiths,  bookbinders,  butchers,  bricklayers 
cabinet  makers,  carpenters,  clerks,  coopers,  engravers, 
grocers,  gold  and  silver  smiths,  gunsmiths,  harness 
makers,  iron  workers,  millwrights,  painters,  printers, 
publishers,  pressmen,  riggers,  ropemakers,  saddlers,  shoe- 
makers, stonecutters,  tailors,  tanners,  tinners,  (or,  as  then 
called,  “tinmen”),  undertakers,  watchmakers,  wheel- 
wrights, and  a half-dozen  other  trades  and  avocations. 

As  Good  as  the  Best. 

Charleston,  the  home  of  these  “mechanics”,  was,  before 
1794,  and  up  to  1861,  regarded  as  the  most  caste-loving, 
aristocracy-cursed  city  in  this  republic;  the  whole  system 
being  based  on  a real  or  alleged  slave-holding  oligarchy. 
Yet,  if  it  were  possible  to  compile  a list  of  the  social  “four 
hundred”  from  1820  to  1860,  over  a hundred  of  the  names 
of  these  mechanics,  in  the  first  and  second  generations, 
would  be  found  thereon.  They  had  read  or  heard— some 
of  them  had  been  taught  in  the  Episcopal  Church  cate- 
chism—“To  order  myself,  lowly  and  reverently,  to  all  my 
betters.  * * * And  to  do  my  duty  in  that  state  of  life 
unto  which  it  shall  please  God  to  call  me.”  But,  happily, 
they  did  not  believe  those  pious  promises,  or  injunctions, 
and  were  blessed  with  what  a modern  economist  calls  ‘ ‘a 
divine  discontent.”  They  believed— with  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son and  John  Adams— “that  there  is  a natural  aristocracy 
among  men,  the  grounds  of  which  are  virtue  and  talents,” 
and  that  it  was  the  duty  of  every  thoughtful,  self-respect- 
ing Carolinian  not  to  be  satisfied  “in  that  state  of  life”  in 
which  adverse  circumstances  had  placed  him;  and  so  hun- 
dreds of  them  worked  out  their  “social  salvation.  ” I mean 
that  they  reached  the  same  standard  of  living  as  the  so- 
called  “slave-holding  oligarchy”;  and  that,  I take  it,  is 
the  real  difference  between  the  upper  and  lower  crust  in 


54  LABOR  ORGANIZATIONS  IN  SOUTH  CAROLINA. 

society;  it  is  not  blood  relationship;  it  is  not  altogether 
wealth;  it  is  the  standard  of  living  that  makes  one  class 
hold  itself  socially  above  other  classes.  With  all  its  narrow 
limitations  and  anachronisms,  the  check  book,  and  large 
landed  estate  have  never  constituted  the  open  sesame  to 
the  highest  society  in  Charleston;  brains  and  character 
almost  always  had  precedence,  and  that  is  the  reason  why 
so  many  of  the  “mechanic”  class  entered  it. 

Professor  Cooley,  of  the  University  of  Michigan,  says: 
“Throughout  English  history,  we  are  told  the  salvation  of 
its  society  has  been  its  comparative  openness,  the  fact  that 
ability  could  percolate  into  it,  instead  of  rising  up  behind 
it  like  water  behind  a dam,  as  was  the  case  in  pre-revolu- 
tionary France”;  and  so,  I am  inclined  to  believe,  was  the 
case  in  old  Charleston,  perhaps  the  most  English  of  Amer- 
ican cities.  What  the  future  has  in  store,  with,  what 
socialists  call,  “capitalism”  in  control,  no  one  can  tell — 
I deal  here  only  with  the  dead  past. 

Y.  S. 


Date  Due 


P12128 


331.87  .37263  1914 


■?; 


i 


